Warp War
by boxerboo
Summary: It is the 52nd Century and Earth is at war with the mysterious 'Screamers'. But who or what is mutating time? A story of the 12th Doctor and Kim Gideon in thirty-five chapters. COMPLETE.
1. The Lone Wolf

Warp War: _Prologue_

_All wars need a name. _

_It is mostly a matter of shorthand. One could say; "The series of European conflicts fought by various allied nations against France in the period 1799-1815" but it is quicker to say "The Napoleonic Wars" and most people will have a rough idea what you mean._

_Thus it is with such conflicts as The American Civil War, The Franco-Prussian War, The Boer War and, of course, World Wars One through Six._

_As humanity took to the stars, spreading its wings and philosophies, new conflicts erupted and were duly named. The various Dragon Wars, fought against the Draconians in the 26__th__ Century, The War of the Dying Light, The Martian Colony Revolt, The Dalek War of 4000AD and so on. There were even whispers of a fabled Time War, in which higher species were devastated, but humanity could not put its collective finger on that one._

_Humanity received its fair share of salutary bloody noses out there and by the start of the 52__nd__ Century (Old Calendar) had erected a massive and sophisticated home defence system. This was based on concentric rings of sensors and weapons, starting with an electronic picket-line out beyond the orbit of Pluto, falling back through the Jovian laser satellites, the Neutronic mines of the Asteroid belt, right to the Ionic shield that could be erected around the homeworld itself._

_They were safe in their bubble of complacency._

_In the summer of 5110AD the outer sensor ring detected an incoming threat. Alerts were flashed throughout the solar system. Weapons were activated and the Ion shield powered up around Earth. The threat seemed to be a single missile, of unknown origin, targeting the homeworld at incredible speed. But the sensors kept losing it. It seemed to be phasing, fading in and out of reality. Disappearing and reappearing in an almost random, untrackable pattern._

_When the missile finally disappeared, out beyond Neptune, there was a collective sigh of relief but the barriers stayed up whilst the defence experts examined the data, scratching their heads._

_Six months later, undetected, the missile detonated over Australia with a force that destroyed the continent and devastated the Pacific Rim in the ensuing tsunami. Three-dimensional defenses defeated by a four-dimensional weapon._

_This was followed by a carrier wave that carried a terse declaration of war. The translator-matrices could only make a stab at the attackers' name for themselves and came up with 'Screamers'. The name stuck._

_Two years later Marsopolis was lost in the same way. The Screamers were playing a long game._

_Faced with catastrophe, Humanity began a frantic research program into Warp technology._

_And oh yes, The Warp War got its name..._

Warp War: Chapter 1: _The Lone Wolf_

Mik Dekka jolted out of Cryo. His hand flew to his temple where he tapped at the chip buried beneath his skin, altering the output from the erotic dream that had lasted the best part of three years (Old Calendar) to a basic Bio-scan of his own body.

Symbols flashed in his brain.

Apart from the wasting that always accompanied Cryogenisis, a slightly arrhythmic heartbeat seemed to be his only problem. Mik wondered idly whether the EroDream was a factor as he programmed just the right electric charge. He arced against his restraints as his heart was kicked back to normality.

Satisfied, he touched the chip to provide a tactical analysis.

HUD symbology gave him place and time and flashed up vectors in four dimensions.

He was drifting at the boundary of the Nebula of the Lion Rampant in his small Hunter-class Cryo-ship. Barely a pod really. He hadn't moved out of his command seat in fifteen years. By his reckoning he had been asleep for about twelve of them. Pipes fed him nutrients and took away his waste. His chip gave him dreams – a semblance of life.

It was a living death, but he knew that when he volunteered as a Lone Wolf. Anyway, this was war.

"Contact." The voice – Athena he had christened her- whispered seductively in his ear. "ID positive. Neutrino Missile. Projected target: Sol system."

Not on my watch, thought Dekka.

An iridescent angry triangle blinked in his mind. There it was, phasing this way and that, inside the Nebula.

Dekka locked on his sensors and was rewarded by a constant whine in his ear.

"Target acquired," confirmed Athena.

Over the next twelve hours Dekka patiently constructed and profiled the sizzling ball of warp-energy in the belly of his little ship. When he was satisfied he whispered a single word, "Release."

For the merest second he watched the glowing sphere as it disappeared against the stars. Then he flipped the auto disengage. As his ship began to phase in and out of real-space to escape the area, Athena whispered again, "Predicted intercept possibility 79%. Estimated time to impact 5.85 Years."

He would never know, thought Dekka. Just like the other four intercepts on this mission. He was just playing the numbers.

The stars funneled around him.

He was in a mini-wormhole he had drilled through warp space to the Descrii System and safety from Screamer retribution when Athena suddenly shrilled in his ear: "Collision Alert!"

Dekka was astonished. Collision? In a self-generated wormhole? His chip flashed up a rectangular symbol that melded with that of his own ship.

Time froze.

Dekka was looking down into a cavernous room. Its walls were covered in geometric shapes. There was a dim light coming from somewhere. Looking up at him were two figures. Humanoid. A man and a woman. They were standing at a free-floating circular console.

The man was hefty, slightly stooped and had curly hair. The woman was shorter with square-cut dark hair and some kind of contraption perched on her nose of wire and glass. Both were clothed in a way Dekka had never seen before.

There was a moment of serenity where they just looked at each other before a terrible concussion hit Dekka, as if a giant hammer had struck the hull of his little ship.

He saw the man in the room below fall aside as if knocked over by a great wind. The room itself tilted at an angle. Suddenly the face of the woman filled Dekka's vision. She was screaming but he heard nothing.

Dekka's ship burst laterally back into real space and span down towards the nearest available landfall. It was mortally wounded.

But Dekka had problems of his own. Wedged into the tiny cabin along side him, was the woman from the cavernous room. She was still screaming but Dekka could hear her cry now. Over and over. The same word.

"DOCTOR...DOCTOR...DOCTOR!"

(End of Chapter 1)


	2. Snow and Headlights

Warp War: Chapter 2: _Snow and Headlights_

Like anyone else Kim Gideon was made up of a jigsaw of personalities.

At the present time two of them were dominant.

The first was a screaming helpless wreck. Unthinking; terrified; the abandoned frightened child. Her cries filled the oval cockpit in which she was wedged. "DOCTOR...HELP ME...DOCTOR!"

Somewhere else, an altogether more rational Kim tried to blot out the fear. How the hell had she got from there to here?

She had been standing in the Tardis control room, minding her own business when a raucous alarm had filled the cavernous space. The Doctor had jumped like a startled hare and scanned the controls feverishly. He turned towards Kim with wide eyes and Kim heard him scream a single phrase before she was snatched away; "Time Ram!"

Now she was here. Inside this cramped space with the strange albino waif who was struggling with the controls.

Outside the window was a flaming orange haze that suddenly cleared to reveal a winter wonderland of arctic beauty. The rational Kim looked out with interest but the screaming child took over again as they ploughed into the side of a mountain and everything went black.

*

Kim fought to regain consciousness.

God – what a hangover! That must have been some party last night. Only, as she remembered, she didn't get invited to parties. She tried to pull the bedcovers over her for warmth but only succeeded in covering her face with freezing snow.

She sat up with a start. A mistake which caused her to ache from head to toe. She had the taste of blood on her lips and she could feel a throbbing lump under her left eye. Her glasses had wedged into the bridge of her nose in a furrow of congealed blood. The right lens was cracked.

She was sitting in the snow on the side of an arctic mountain on an alien world. The tundra had an unearthly beauty. A white fairy-tale landscape lit by a distant sun which was too blue and too far away in a deep maroon sky of unfamiliar stars.

Kim looked down the mountainside at the wreckage of the ship that had snatched her bodily from the safety of the Tardis. It looked as though it had split in half with the rear of the ship scattered in small pieces and the front, about the size of a removal van, nestling nose first in the snow.

She also spotted why she was still alive. A long trench scarred the mountainside, about twice the length of a football field. It showed that the craft had struck the mountain obliquely rather than head on. She remembered the pilot fighting with the controls. She probably owed her life to him, thrown clear as she had been from the impact.

The pilot !

Kim scrambled to her feet, trying to ignore the pain from her possibly cracked ribs.

With difficulty she staggered down the slope to the cockpit area of the wreck.

He was still there, hanging limply in his seat, unconscious. For a moment she thought he might be dead but there was a shallow rising of his chest and sighing breath.

Around him some of his instruments were sparking and glowing and Kim had a sudden dread that the thing might explode in her face. Even working frantically through her pain it took a good half-hour for Kim to disentangle the pilot. He was hooked up to his instruments by many cables and tubes that Kim had to disconnect. Then she found that his right leg had buckled underneath him, clearly broken and it took time for her to carefully extract it.

He was still, mercifully, unconscious when she dragged him clear of the wreck.

She looked around for some shelter but could only see what appeared to be an outcrop of spindly, tree-like vegetation further up the mountain.

It was better than nothing. They wouldn't survive for long in the open.

Kim picked up the pilot with surprising ease. He was as light as a feather, almost child-like in stature. Even so, it was a hard slog up to the little copse. By the time she reached it though, Kim had spotted a cleft in the mountain and found the cave.

To call it a cave is a misnomer. It opened out into a tall cavernous space which drilled deep into the mountain. The floor was sandy and from somewhere Kim could hear a metronomic drip of water. It was certainly a better bet than the freezing conditions outside, although it was still chilly.

As carefully as she could Kim laid the pilot in the sand. They would need some warmth as a matter of urgency. Thank heavens the Doctor had always insisted she carry a box of matches in her coat. But what to burn?

She would have to go back outside.

Less than an hour later she had a small fire going, a mixture of kindling and some torn strips of material from the lining of her quilted jacket. Giant shadows played around the rocky walls.

Kim looked down at the pilot. She had half-expected to find him dead when she returned from her foraging but he was still hanging on. Just about. His face was lacerated and bruised. His leg was broken and he was in deep shock. But his shallow breath formed vapour in the meagre heat from the fire.

As Kim warmed her hands she was overcome with fatigue and drifted on the edge of sleep. A distant memory clawed at her mind...

_Snow...Ice...Shadows...Light..._

_*_

Three year-old Kim Gideon was playing out in her snowy front garden as her mother kept an eye on her from the kitchen window.

The little girl was well-muffled against the weather, with her boots, big coat, hat and gloves. But she could still feel the icy wind attacking her extremities as she threw snowballs and skidded on icy puddles.

The shadows were lengthening when the front gate squeaked open. The paper boy threw her a cheery look as he pushed the newspaper through the letter box and another one as he went out of the gate. It squeaked again but this time bounced carelessly open as he left.

The little girl, chasing snowflakes, found herself in the middle of the road. From somewhere she heard her mother scream but by then the headlights were upon her...

(END OF CHAPTER 2)


	3. Seven Days

Warp War: Chapter 3: _Seven Days_

Kim woke with a start in the chilly cavern. The blazing headlights of her dream became the flickering light ftom the fire. The screeching brakes settled into the regular sound of dripping water. But the cold still remained just as cold.

Her watch told her that she had been asleep for about two hours. The Doctor had occasionally teased her about her watch, ticking its senseless way through eternity, but Kim found it a reassuring link to her own passing individual time.

To be fair the Doctor had been genuinely concerned when she had been so upset as the battery finally expired. He flashed it with the blue light of his sonic probe and declared she would never need a new battery again.

Kim glanced at her unconscious companion and then at the embers of the nearby fire. She quickly added some kindling from their meagre supply and warmed her hands as the rejuvenated fire crackled.

On a whim Kim found a nearby stone and scratched a mark on the wall to record the passage of time. She would try and do this every twenty four hours if she could.

**Day 1**

The pilot awoke at last. He tapped at his temple like a madman before shaking his head like a wet dog. He was suspicious of Kim but softened when she told him how she had dragged him from the wreck. It must be true because he was imobilised by his broken leg. They ate some berries from the vegetation Kim had gathered. He told her that there was some food concentrate in the cockpit of his ship. Kim said she would go and get it as soon as she could. Outside it was blowing a blizzard.

**Day 2**

He told her his name today – Mik Dekka. She told him hers. She asked if his leg was very painful. He said that normally he would have no pain at all but the chip in his head was not functioning. Probably damaged in the crash. In the event he was controlling the pain mentally as best he could. He was still a bit wary and suspicious. Kim said she would try to get some material for splints – they would help his leg heal. Dekka speculated that there had been a coming together of his ship and hers in warp space that had led to their predicament. Kim shrugged and tried to look intelligent.

**Day 3**

The blizzard had abated. At Dekka's direction Kim found some emergency rations in the cockpit of the wreck and hurried back. It looked and tasted like wallpaper paste but they both gobbled it down voraciously. Dekka relaxed and told her about the Warp War against the Screamers. He was a native of Australia and had been training for the Deep Space Navigation Corps on Titan when the Screamers had destroyed his homeland. With a burning desire for revenge he had volunteered for the Lone Wolf Corps. This was an elite band who patrolled the edge of Screamer space in Cryo ships, intercepting their Neutronic Missiles aimed at the Sol system. He was proud of his score of four likely kills in fifteen years. He asked Kim about news from Earth. She was evasive.

**Day 4**

Kim applied splints to Dekka's right leg, trying to ignore his grimace of pain as she did so. She used some flexible bamboo-like material she had found outside, bound with cloth from her jacket. Dekka rested after the ordeal. He explained that his ship had an emergency beacon which would squawk an alarm through Warp Space. It could mean a rescue but it would need power to use. Kim was doubtful. The ship looked dead to her and was half covered in snow. Dekka said he would need to get down there as soon as he could. He tried to stand but gasped with pain and sank back onto the sand. Kim swallowed some more of the awful paste and wondered how they were ever going to get out of here.

**Day 5 **

Snowed in again by a raging blizzard outside. They had a good supply of drinking water – the persistent drip had led Kim to a small pool at the rear of the cavern. But what she wouldn't give for a juicy steak and thick-cut chips. Instead they had the tasteless paste and bitter berries, both of which were running dangerously low. Kim told Dekka something of her time with the Doctor. Not the time-travelling bit, of course. When she described something of the Tardis Dekka said that he was ever more convinced that , for a moment, they had occupied the same physical location in Warp Space, leading to the collision and his 'kidnap' of Kim. Dekka said that his leg was hurting more now and Kim worried about infection setting in.

**Day 6**

The blizzard still raged outside. Dekka said he thought it was getting colder. The food had virtually run out and they huddled together for warmth, half burrowing into the sand. There wasn't much left to say. Kim slept fitfully and dreamed of warmth and food and the Doctor. The fire was almost dead and, Kim thought, so were they.

*

Colder and colder.

Dekka had speculated that this small world was on an elliptical orbit from its distant sun and that they might have arrived at the start of its winter, a thought that did little to cheer Kim up.

Like everyone, Kim had been cold before. But not like this. She was cold through to her soul. She could actually feel her bones ache with it. The cold delineated them.

Was this hypothermia? she thought, as she dragged the tangled bundle of precious vegetation behind her, through the snow towards the dot of oasis that was the cave.

Mercifully, the blizzard had abated giving Kim a window of opportunity to forage amongst the sparse vegetation on the mountainside.

She paused for a moment, gasping in the thin air which burned her lungs.

Looking back down the mountain she could see the wreck of the ship, half buried by the snow. She had a love-hate relationship with that wreck. Hate, because it was the cause of her being torn from the safety of the Tardis and the Doctor; love, because it represented her best chance of getting back.

She shrugged, shrinking back into the depths of her quilted jacket for the last vestiges of warmth and grabbed the bundle of vegetation with her blue hands.

She resumed her mechanical gait up the mountain as the wind began to whip snow around her once again.

At length Kim reached to the entrance of the cave and stooped to enter, dragging the vegetation in behind her.

As she entered the cave she glanced at her wristwatch and dutifully scraped a seventh mark on the wall.

"We were lucky with the snow stopping -" Kim pulled up short.

Mik Dekka was stranding before her, his face straining with effort. "I've got to get down to the ship," he gasped. " I have to activate the signal."

"But your leg – you're not ready yet..."

"It's getting colder, Kim. We can't survive like this much longer. Listen"

She frowned. "I can't hear anything."

"The dripping water has stopped. It's frozen."

(End of Chapter 3)


	4. Message in a Bottle

Warp War: Chapter 4: _Message in a Bottle._

It had taken them the better part of an hour to descend to the wreck of Dekka's ship. Kim had acted as his crutch and tried to ignore the pain on his sunken face. He stood, swaying, as he looked at his ship for a long time. Only part of its nose was visible now, the rest of the cockpit buried deep in snow. The rear had snapped off, shattered and been covered in white.

Kim had managed to clear a path into the cockpit. At Dekka's direction she had extracted a small, hand-sized module from the control panel. The emergency beacon. She passed it to him.

He patted it a few times, let out a gasp of frozen breath and threw it to the ground with a grunt of pain and frustration.

"No power," he muttered. "The energy modules were in the rear of the ship."

"I thought it might have some kind of self-contained power."

"A design flaw."

"Perhaps we should complain to the makers about it ? " If Dekka got Kim's lame attempt at humour he didn't show it.

On the horizon a ferocious storm was approaching, blotting out the sky. The feeble blue sun of this place seemed ever more remote and impotent. It was losing the battle.

"We had better start back -" Kim half turned but stopped. On the other side of the buried ship she saw a glimmer of red rising from the snow. At first she thought it was her eyes playing tricks but she went over to it anyway.

There was a faint steam vapour drifting incongruously from a small hole in the snow. A melted hole.

_Melted..._

Scrambling on her knees she reached down into the hole and pulled out...something.

It was about the size of a laptop, sightly curved, constructed from metal and with a strange geometric pattern on its surface. But, most importantly, it was glowing with a faint crimson light and she could feel heat.

_Heat!_

She rushed over to Dekka. "This seems to be still working. Feel." She virtually knocked him over as she pushed the object into his hands.

He frowned. "Its not part of my ship."

"How do you mean-" Kim's hand went up to her mouth as realisation set in.

"It seems that I didn't just take you in the collision." Dekka held up the glowing panel. "This must be from your ship. Whatever it is, itseems to have some residual power that we can use. Quickly, Kim. Get the beacon module."

She snatched it up from the snow.

"Now, from the cockpit, grab hold of as much exposed wiring as you can. We're going to need it as a conduit."

After some fretful scrambling Kim emerged with a handful of filament wiring from the cockpit controls.

"That should be enough..." Dekka cast an eye at the horizon and its rapidly approaching white stain. "Come on. Let's get back..."

With Kim as a crutch they started to stagger up the mountain.

*

They just made it back to the cave in time. An express-train roar heralded the arrival of the storm.

Kim watched anxiously, rubbing her hands against the cold, as Dekka fiddled with the motley collection of equipment they had retrieved from the wreck. His sunken face was rigid with concentration and his tongue poked out of the corner of his mouth as his hands blurred.

"Have you done anything like this before?"

He shook his head but he worked quickly and accurately to connect the Emergency Beacon to the faintly glowing piece of Tardis technology, using the wire filaments Kim had recovered from the cockpit. Dekka tapped experimentally at a control on the beacon module and gave a muffled exclamation as it lit up, dully.

He looked at Kim with eyes of wonder. "Don't ask me how, but it's powering up !"

"What now?"

"Quick. Speak into this." Dekka indicated a tiny grill on the module. "If this Doctor of yours is anywhere nearby...well you never know."

Kim spoke a few words, the first that came into her head.

Dekka held up his hand to cut her off. "That's probably as much as it will send. It's on a loop. The power is minimal." His hand hovered over a small switch on the module.

"What are you waiting for?"

"You realise that the signal will probably be picked up by the Screamers? Give us away."

"Do it, " said Kim without hesitation. "We'll die anyway..."

Dekka pressed the transmit switch and the machine began to beep. "It's done." he said, sinking back into the sand.

"Message in a bottle," breathed Kim.

Outside the temperature plummeted and the wind howled. The air was full of dense snow. Flakes the size of a fist.

Whiteout.

(End of Chapter 4)


	5. A Shot at Infinity

Warp War: Chapter 5: _A Shot at Infinity_

And so the improbable distress signal beeped out.

It went on a wing and a prayer. Powered by an incompatible energy source which gave it less strength than a torch battery.

One could liken its chances to a blind man firing an arrow into the widest ocean, hoping to spear the last remaining fish.

But, astonishingly, it scored a hit....

(End of Chapter 5)


	6. A Whisper from the Ether

Warp War : Chapter: 6: A _Whisper from the Ether_

Jo Grant had just about nodded off when the laboratory door burst open.

She didn't have to look up to know who it was. Only her boss – Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge Stewart – habitually crashed through doors as if they weren't there.

In a reflex action Jo swept her 'Metropolitan' magazine into a drawer, slammed it shut and looked up at the Brigadier, trying to seem alert.

"Good to see that you are keeping busy, Miss Grant," said the Brigadier, moustache twitching slightly.

"Ahem, yes sir." said Jo, staring at the perplexing tangle of scientific instruments on the table in front of her as if she knew what she was looking at. She knew very well that the Brigadier could see right through her little charade.

The Brigadier placed an important looking briefcase on the desk. Jo noticed that it was chained to his wrist.

"Where is he?"

Jo inclined her head towards the blue police box standing in the corner of the lab.

The Brigadier raised his voice. "Doctor! Doctor – if you please!"

The police-box door squeaked open. The Doctor's head appeared, peering around the door frame like an inquisitive light-bulb. "What is it now, Lethbridge Stewart? I'm in the middle of some intricate adjustments to the Vortex cones." As if to make his point he waved a screwdriver around.

The Brigadier indicated the briefcase. "Something for you to have a look at. Right up your street. In more ways than one."

The Doctor stepped warily out into the lab. "I hope it's not another wild goose chase. I've told you already, the Master has almost certainly left this world in his Tardis. That's why I would like some peace and quiet to repair mine so I can get on his trail. After all, we don't want a repetition of the last fiasco, do we?" The Doctor stared pointedly at his young assistant, who flushed crimson.

Jo's last field assignment, just before Christmas, had been to follow up a suspected Master sighting in Southampton. It ultimately led to a UNIT snatch team arresting a Santa Claus collecting money for charity in the centre of the town. Jo's response to the Brigadier's almighty dressing-down had already passed into UNIT folklore:

"Well he did have a beard, sir!"

Jo suspected that only her Uncle's government position had saved her from the boot, although she had heard that the Doctor had put in a good word for her, too.

The Brigadier cleared his throat. " No, it's not him this time." He unlocked the briefcase and pulled out a sheaf of paper covered with symbols. And, of all things, a portable cassette recorder.

"A couple of days ago a signal from deep space was detected by several listening stations simultaneously. Jodrell Bank, Fylingdales, SETI and so on. It was passed to Geneva and on to me."

"My dear Lethbridge Stewart, there are any number of advanced civilisations out there. You know that."

"Indeed, Doctor. But bear with me. I think you will want to hear this."

The Brigadier clicked on the machine. At first there was a hiss of static. Then a rhythmic beep – beep, clear and steady. Then a voice. Just a few snatched words, but extraordinary ones. Then the repetitive beep once more.

The Doctor, who had been glancing disinterestedly at the paperwork looked up as if stung.

"Again," he said urgently. "The words. Quickly"

The Brigadier re-wound the tape and the words rang out again.

There was a long silence as the Doctor minutely studied the sheaf of paper on the desk in front of him.

"They can't seem to pinpoint the origin of the message," said the Brigadier.

The Doctor looked up and his face creased into a tight smile. "I'm not surprised. They've probably just been looking in three dimensions. It's all here, in the data. It's a message from the future."

"The future?" exclaimed Jo.

"Quite a way into the future at that." The Doctor picked up his screwdriver and headed for the Tardis.

"What are we going to do about it?" asked the Brigadier.

The Doctor paused at the door of his grounded ship. "I don't know about you, Brigadier, but I'm going to ready the Tardis for a test-flight." The door of the police box closed behind him.

Jo and the Brigadier looked at each other.

In her head Jo could still hear those few desperate words, crackly but distinct:

"...Can you hear me? We are dying here...help me....Doctor...please help me..."

(End of Chapter 6)


	7. Screamers

Warp War: Chapter 7:_ Screamers_

They waited for ever, so it seemed

The beacon bleeped out its feeble message to the stars and nothing happened.

As the temperature plummeted they gave up hope. The sand beneath them, which had previously afforded a degree or two of comfort, froze. The wind whipped through the mountain walls as if they weren't there, turning the interior into an icebox.

Their tomb.

Dekka, riven by the raging infection in his broken leg, lay immobile in the frozen sand of the cavern. Kim slowly subsided at his side, dithering. She lost track of time. The fire and food had long gone. She was going to die here. She looked at the waif-like figure lying next to her. He looked as though he already had.

Then there came a time when she felt nothing. Where her consciousness was a pinprick deep inside her frozen shell.

It was then that the Screamers came for them.

They were well-named, filling the cavern with their monstrous wailing and moaning. Kim couldn't even open her frozen eyes to get a look at them.

No matter, death would foil them.

As oblivion closed in though, an extraordinary exchange took place in her subconscious, between two pieces of the jigsaw that made up Kim Gideon.

_Hang on! Hang on for God's sake!_

Leave me alone. I want to die. Let me go.

_Oh no, you don't. Keep fighting!_

What for? I've tried my best but it's all over. The cold has got me.

_Listen to me, you fool. That noise. You know what it means!_

The Screamers...

_Screamers, My Arse! It's the Tardis!_

(END OF CHAPTER 7)


	8. Slanting Sunlight

Warp War: Chapter 8 : _Slanting Sunlight_

The crumb that was Kim Gideon's consciousness heard voices.

Which was strange. After all, she was dead wasn't she?

_We'll have to get them back quickly. Give me a hand._

_The shock could kill them..._

_We'll have to risk it..._

She tried to open her eyes to see the Screamers but they were still frozen shut. Suddenly her consciousness was swamped with agony as she was moved, tilting the slush of her blood around her hollow shell.

Then there was light. Even through her shuttered eyelids it seared red and blinded her. It was the last straw for her fragile awareness, which scuttled away like a startled crab, drawing a merciful blanket behind it.

*

Later.

Voices again. Different ones. Still her eyes were clamped shut.

_What are their temperatures, Sister ?_

_He is reading 75.4. She is hovering just under 80._

There was quiet except for a sharp intake of breath. The black pit engulfed her again.

*

The next time she managed to open her eyes a crack. Blurred whiteness and grey shadows flitted about.

_Are you ready? Right. Turn it on_. (Hum)._ It's a good job she's unconscious..._

Terrific scalding pain as it seemed that a blowtorch was applied to her extremities.

Blackness came down almost instantly, like a shutter.

*

Eventually there came a time when the shredded jigsaw of Kim's subconscious came together. Maybe reluctantly and with an accompaniment of weary fear, but come together it did.

Kim's eyes fluttered open. She was in a room of peace. She felt the softness of a mattress beneath her. She couldn't move and she felt warm water chugging around her body, kissing it exquisitely.

Her vision was blurred and a dark shape was at her side.

"My glasses..." she croaked.

The shape in front of her moved out of vision and Kim felt a weight gently placed on the bridge of her nose.

The room swam into focus. Small, clean and with slanting sunlight angling through a small gap in the floral curtains. Kim could see that she was strapped onto the bed to prevent movement. She could move her head slightly but that was all. She seemed to be extensively bandaged.

An intravenous drip was connected to her right arm and a coil of soft plastic piping surrounded her. She could feel it pumping a stream of warm water.

"We had some more glasses made up for you. Your originals had shattered due to the cold. I hope these are OK."

The voice belonged to the dark shape which sat in the chair at the side of Kim's bed. A shape that was, in fact, a very petite, very pretty blond girl dressed in a denim mini-dress, boots and stripy jumper. She smiled at Kim with her elfin face and the whole room seemed to light up.

"They're fine...who -"

The girl hushed her. "You're out of danger now. Don't try to talk too much. I know you must have many questions. My name is Jo Grant, by the way."

The girl leaned forward expectantly, obviously waiting for Kim to give her name in return.

Kim was about to oblige but part of her warned against it. Could this all be a trap by the mysterious Screamers? An illusion?

"Where am I ?" said Kim, after a pause.

The blond girl who called herself Jo Grant sat back in her chair. "You're in a hospital. Ashbridge Cottage hospital. It's a place we use from time to time. In Essex."

_Essex!_

"We ?"

"The people I work for. It's a branch of the army, sort of..."

"How long have I been here?"

"Ten days. You've been drifting in and out most of the time. They thought you weren't going to make it. You were virtually frozen solid. They had to warm you up very slowly otherwise the shock would have killed you."

"There was someone with me..."

A shadow flitted across Jo's face. She tried to hide it but it was too late and Kim had her answer. Poor Mik Dekka !

"We'll talk about that later shall we?" Jo was all brisk and breezy. "The doctors here think you are some kind of miracle."

Kim felt suddenly drained and a bitterness filled her. "Unless one of these doctors has a police telephone box that is bigger on the inside than on the outside, I'm not much bothered what they think." Kim closed her eyes.

"So you remember the Tardis then." Jo's voice seemed to come from a long distance but her words caused Kim to snap back to full consciousness.

"Did you say 'Tardis' ?"

Jo smiled. "Yes. It stands for Time and Relative -"

"I know what it stands for," Kim interrupted. "How do you know about the Tardis?"

Jo frowned. "How else do you think we rescued you?"

Kim glanced around the room, then back at Jo and her old-fashioned but familiar clothes. She then asked the sixty-four thousand dollar question. "What's the date?"

"Oh, it's Tuesday January -"

"The year. The year !"

"1973," said Jo, gently.

"Ha!" barked Kim. "I'm three years old !"

Jo smiled. "It doesn't quite work like that. Look, the Doctor will explain everything..." There was a murmur of voices at the door to the room. "Speak of the devil -"

The door opened and Kim swiveled her head excitedly, expecting to see the familiar figure in his brown Duffel-coat with the egg-timer badge, morphing T-shirt and hiking boots.

Instead she saw a stranger dressed in a bottle green velvet jacket, dress shirt and immaculate coiffured silver mane. He looked like nothing more than a TV celebrity hairdresser.

"Hello," he said, his lined face breaking into a smile. "Glad to see you're awake. We have a lot to talk about."

In her crushing disappointment Kim turned away, half-burying her face in the pillow. She watched the sunlight through the gap in the curtains and her eyes filled with tears.

_Doctor...where are you..?_

Where indeed?

(End of Chapter 8)


	9. Intermission

Warp War: Chapter 9: _Intermission_

Hello there!

Author here!

Apologies for those of you tuning in expecting to find Chapter 9 of Warp War. Well, actually, I should qualify that. This IS Chapter 9 of Warp War !

I've seen (and used) many variations of Auhtor's Notes: forewords, afterwords, epilogues etc. But I've never seen Author's Notes shoehorned mid-way through a story!

Is it against the rules? I don't know. I only know that I like to confound expectations sometimes.

I've never written a story of this length before (I hesitate to use the word 'novel'), being more comfortable with short stories to which I think the fanfic medium is most suited.

But I got an urge to see if I could do it. At least twenty chapters, I thought, possibly a Space Opera along the lines of the TV story 'Frontier in Space'.

Those of you who have read any of my previous Kim Gideon stories (are there any such beings?) may have seen a link. In the story 'Where the Heart is ?' I returned Kim home after about 2 years of travelling with the twelfth Doctor and filled in an 'off-screen' back history of their adventures together. I had no intention then of fleshing these one-liners out into stories but that is all I seem to be doing.

When thinking about my opus in 20 Chapters one line from that story kept jumping out at me:

_Even more fascinating were her journeys to her own world. From its young vibrant beginnings when they had walked with dinosaurs,__ to the far flung future of the Warpwars..._

So I began writing Warp War.

However, with hindsight I would have used an alternative title: 'The Mutation of Time' – notwithstanding the fact that John Peel used it for part of his novelization of 'The Dalek's Masterplan'. (still, It's so good I will probably use it as a chapter title !).

As you can see, my original idea for a standard Space Opera has gone off on a tangent or two.

A note on the mechanics (I am very interested in the mechanics of how writers write. I don't know whether YOU are though...)

I decided that I would try to keep 5 chapters ahead of the game. At present I have just finished Chapter 14 (and posted Chapter 8 – excluding this). I have also written three other chapters out of chronological order to be slotted in later. This is something I have done on a small scale before. In this case I got stuck on Chapter 12 and left it halfway through to write these other Chapters that seemed more concrete. (I let Chapter 12 lie dormant into my head until it matured in its own good time). Interestingly (!) one of the chapters already in the can is the final one! This positively flowed out onto the keyboard – the easiest chapter to date!

A number of people have asked me if I have any visualization of the 12th Doctor and Kim (actually that number is zero, but I can dream).

The Doctor is based on TV comedian Alan Davies (of Jonathan Creek fame), with elements of F1 driver David Coulthard and TV chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall thrown in. His costume is very much 'Jonathan Creek', and his slightly nasal UK West Country accent is from Davies himself.

For a long time I had no idea about Kim Gideon except that she looked 'ordinary' (whatever that means). Then I saw a UK stand-up commediene called Sarah Millican on TV and she struck me as being how I imagined Kim to look (albeit slightly younger that the 39 years of age I imagined Kim to be when she joined the Doctor).

Anybody interested in a 'Kimography' ? Thought not.

Here it is:

'The Word'

'Paradigm'

'Where The Heart Is?'

'The Fixed Point'

'Kimbo Meets The Snots'

'Chatoyance'

'Sister and Brother'

'The Macra Invade NYC'

'The Wedding Present'

'Squaring the Circle '(sort of)

I have a theory about Fanfic. Although we love feedback and reviews I think that the vast majority of fanfic writers do so to fulfill a creative need within themselves, rather that writing for an audience. I put myself in that category.

With that in mind, whilst I apologise to anyone who is put out, or even outraged, by this 'Intermission', it is something I felt the need to do for myself, in my story.

To take a breather.

Right, to the Kimography list above I must, of course, add Warp War, of which this is Chapter 9.

Apologies for the self-indulgence.

Where were we?

Oh yes, Kim is stranded in 1973 wondering where her Doctor is.

Mmm...where indeed? Back to the story.

As someone once said; 'Alon-sy!' Or should that be, 'Geronimo!'

(End of Chapter 9)


	10. The POW

Warp War: Chapter 10 : _The P.O.W._

Battonica tried to control her excitement but, to her embarrassment, it was showing only too clearly.

Her gills fluttered at an alarming rate to accommodate her increased respiration. The lid of her primary eye flickered and the hair on her limbs stood proud. Worst of all her throat-sac was swollen to twice its normal size and flushed crimson.

Thank the stars that all the males were in the adjacent viewing chamber, as Battonica's visible excitement could easily have triggered a spawning frenzy!

She tried a few calming techniques, but was only successful when she partially phased, flushing the unwanted hormones from her system. Her breathing slowed to a manageable level and her gills assumed their normal relaxed position. Her eyelid retracted, the limb- hairs flattened and, most thankfully, her throat-sac deflated and became transparent.

Battonica crabbed over to the crystalline console and activated the controls with her forelimbs. A bright viewscreen into the prison chamber flared into life and she saw him for the first time.

She fought down her excitement once more. This was only the fifth human she had ever seen, and only their second live specimen. He hung on the wall of the cell, attached by strands of gel. His four limbs were stretched out in a star-shape and his head (was that what it was called?) hung forward. He was motionless.

His clothing had been removed carefully. (Battonica remembered the disaster with their first live human prisoner when they had tried to remove its clothing and stripped it of its outer dermis as well. It had died screaming after six cycles).

Battonica flicked her chitinous nails across the translator controls, steeled herself and spoke into the microphone.

The prisoner looked up as the words filtered into his chamber. They had a clipped, grinding quality but were clear and definitely feminine.

"We do not want you to be fearful. You are a prisoner here. We will treat you with all correctness, as far as we are able. But we know so little about you. There are things you need to tell us."

The prisoner's head sank down onto his chest again.

Battonica gave her equivalent of a sigh and tried again, very aware that she herself was being watched and judged by unseen eyes.

"If we are to put a stop to this war we need to communicate. To understand each other. There are those of my kind who would have you dissected while you were still alive. To search for a weakness. But I want to talk to you."

The head came up briefly, then flopped forward again.

Encouraged, she continued, "My name is Battonica. I am a biologist amongst my people...a...how you say...doctor."

At the word 'doctor' the humanoid's head snapped up quickly. His mouth worked slowly.

"Doctor..." he said. Then there was a faint noise that translated as quiet laughter.

Battonica flushed with excitement. He spoke! Only a word, yes, but he spoke!

She spoke urgently into the grille.

"You need to tell us about yourself. You are different to the other humans we captured. When we found you, floating in space, you were without life-functions. You were dead in the wreckage of your ship. Yet somehow you have the life-force again. If you are able to... regenerate... yourself . If humanity has become indestructible, then the implications for my people in this war are grave. Our instruments give us no clues. I need you to tell me how you have acheived this."

The head came up. The mouth moved. His words filtered through the system.

"I've seen many wars, in many times. There is a universal constant for all prisoners of war. It's called 'name, rank and serial number'. That's all you will get out of me. "

To Battonica it seemed as though he was looking directly out of the screen at her.

"My serial number is Lone Wolf-156Alpha.

My rank is Captain.

My name is Jack Harkness."

(End of Chapter 10)


	11. Good Morning, Captain Jack

Warp War: Chapter 11: _Good Morning, Captain Jack_

Some say Potayto, Some say Potahto, some say Ianto, some say Alonso; Potayto, Potahto, Ianto, Alonso...

_Good Morning, Captain Jack. You seem in good spirits, considering you are alive again._

I warned you, didn't I. Cyanide Gas? Pah! Waste of time. Anyway, is it morning where you are, Battonica ?

_I don't know what 'morning' is, but it seems the appropriate greeting._

I haven't seen a morning in...how long is it now?

_Five Sol Cycles...what do you call them?_

Years. Five years. In fact I haven't seen anything except myself and this cell. Are you trying the long game, Babe? Eh? Trying to sit me out are you? Let me tell you, five years is nothing...

_To an Immortal?_

Aha..nearly had me there! Name, Rank and Number, remember?

_What is 'Ianto'?_

A friend. Someone I knew once. And Alonso.

_Potato?_

A root vegetable. I could show you a trick or two with a root vegetable...

_When you said Ianto and Alonso there was a bio-rhythmic response in your readings. When you said Potato there was nothing._

I've never loved a Potato.

_Loved?_

What do you know of love, Battonica?

_Is that the thing I have seen you do? With your appendages..._

Ooh, you've got a lot to learn about humanity, Kiddo. That's just a kind of...release. Nothing to do with love. Five years IS a long time in some respects. I have to keep my hand in.

_So what is 'love'?_

An emotional attachment between one being and, sometimes, another. It comes in many shades and usually causes havoc all round.

_What is it's purpose ?_

A good question. So-called immortal as I may be, I don't think I have time to answer that.

_Then I had better proceed with the latest test._

How many is it now?

_Twenty-nine._

Haven't you got the message yet?

_I am determined to succeed, Captain Jack. You want me to succeed, I can tell. You are my personal project now. You are my...life._

Why, Battonica, that almost sounds like love.

_I told you. I don't know what love is._

Perhaps if we were to meet, face to face...I could show you.

_We are incompatible, Captain Jack. You don't know how incompatible..._

I've been around the block a few times, Sweetie. I've had my moments, you know, cross-species...

_No._

Oh well. Worth a try...always worth a try. What's it to be this time then?

_Freezing decapitation._

Oh goody!

_*_

_Good Morning, Captain Jack._

Long time, no hear. I thought you had given up on me.

_Never._

So how you gonna kill me today? Something with a bit of imagination, I hope? A bit of finesse?

_No dying today. _

Oh?

_I am under pressure from my superiors. To resolve the problem you pose to us. I have been told to consider ...alternatives._

Go on.

I_t has been proposed that you be secured in a casket and buried on an uninhabited planet. The casket will take millions of cycles to deteriorate. The war will be long over._

That old chestnut! You don't sound too keen on the idea.

_You would go mad. Starve to death over and over. But there is a gathering wave of opinion that we must do something like it. But I think it would be...cruel_

Thank you for that note of compassion. You're right. I would go mad and starve to death again and again. But you know what? When the casket breaks down, or the planet explodes or whatever, I will still be fucking well there! Immortality, remember? What's a million years, a billion years compared to eternity? Anyway, putting that aside, is it a viable solution? Are you going to capture and bury the entire human race in that way?

_Then you admit that you are not unique? That all humanity has become indestructible?_

Whoa there, Tiger. I admit nothing. Just something for you to consider.

_The point may well be moot. We have the data now. We have killed you thirty times and thirty times you have revived. Why do you think we continued so long?_

Sheer bloody-mindedness, I assume. What data?

_We have recorded everything and we have had teams processing the data continuously. There are several promising lines of investigation._

Oh yes?

_I am ...how you say...quietly confident that we will find a way of killing you. Forever._

_*_

_Good morning, Captain Jack._

Well hello there! I'd just about given up on you. You sounded so confident last time I was almost convinced. How long ago was that?

_Ten cycles. Ten...years. It was a difficult project._

Was?

_Yes. This is our last conversation, Captain Jack._

Oh? Given up on me at last have you? I told you. Waste of time.

_We have the answer. _

Get out of here!

_I want you to understand the answer, Captain Jack. That will necessitate some explanation._

How many times? Name, Rank...

_..and Serial Number. Yes and you have been as good as your word. I mean that I will need to explain certain things to you._

_O_h? Well I can't deny a certain curiosity about you and your people. We've never even seen you. I'm listening, as long as you don't expect anything in return.

_Understood. Firstly you should know that this is a war of revenge. Not the most noble of reasons I will grant you. But it is all we have._

Revenge for what? What did we ever do to you?

_You created us. We live in tragedy because of you._

How? For God's sake talk to us instead of lobbing warp missiles...

_That is as much as I can tell you. Apart from this. We are extra-dimensional and that is the solution to you, Captain Jack._

Watcha gonna do? Throw me through the looking glass?

_Our science teams have been studying the data for the last ten of your years. Thirty deaths and rebirths. We were going nowhere until we found the signal._

What signal ?

_When you die, Captain Jack, you emit a signal. Whether you know it or not. This signal is always answered. We do not know what is responding or how. It could be cosmic in nature. Some here have been speculating about the power of black holes, quantum mechanics or even a supernatural entity._

Go on.

_This signal is your cry for life. Once we found that the problem became not one of killing you. That is easy enough. We need to block the signal. We believe we have found a way. By using matter from our dimension we have developed an irradiating ray that will block out your cry for life._

And you really believe all this? For Christ's sake ! I would know if I was crying out for life! Battonica, I am desperate to die !

_I believe you, Captain Jack. That is why I think you are unique amongst your kind. The signal, I think, is an involuntary reflex. Beyond your control. You know of its origin?_

Rose...

_Rose?_

A flower. A flower of life...

_Listen to me Captain Jack, quickly. We have a moment to ourselves. I have engineered it. Blocked out the sensors. None of my people are listening._

Oh no. Of course not.

_You can believe me or believe me not. But there is something I will say. It may be vastly important or nothing at all._

I'm listening.

_When I use a certain word, my own title among my kind, your bio-rhythms spike. It is not love. Not like Ianto or Alonso. Something else. _

What word?

_Tell me about him, Captain Jack. Tell me something of The Doctor..._

(End of Chapter 11)


	12. Time of Death

Warp War: Chapter 12 : _Time of Death_

Deep, deep inside the Nebula of the Lion Rampant, almost at its centre, lay the Schism. A piece of truculent, boiling space where the natural laws of our universe go to die.

Through the Schism the society, known to Humankind as the Screamers, dwells in its seething tragedy.

If one knew where to look one could find, therein, the crystalline egg that had comprised Jack Harkness' cell for the past thirty years.

Inside, the man himself was speaking to the disembodied voice that had been his only companion in all that time. He spoke of the Doctor. Not everything of course. How could anyone tell everything about anybody? Especially the Doctor?

When he had finished Battonica thanked him. Then there was a pause. " I know I ask much, Captain Jack, but if I wanted to contact him...?"

The question, loaded by any standards, hung in the air. Alarm bells clanged in Jack's mind. One by one he shut them off. Maybe she had worn him down. Maybe he was ready to trust someone. "There is a place he visits occasionally. If you could somehow get a message there..."

"Spatio-coordinates?"

He told her, fighting down a desperate feeling that he may have just committed treason, by allowing the Screamers a back-door entry to Earth.

"Thank you. He sounds like our last best hope. I will do my best." Battonica's voice had become a whisper. It now returned to its normal level. Jack guessed that they were no longer screened – if they ever really were.

"Are you ready, Captain Jack? The Final Solution."

_She sounded so sure...that this would be THE one...._

"I've been ready for centuries, Babe."

A tremendous noise nearly burst Jack's eardrums, as if a gargantuan pane of glass had shattered. A whole side of his cell dissolved into glittering dust, leaving it a gaping wound.

Battonica stood revealed before him, a towering monstrosity out of all scale and proportion. Even Jack, who had encountered myriad forms in his long life, felt a momentary weakness in his legs and dryness of mouth.

"You weren't kidding about incompatibility," he said at last. Then he firmed his voice. "But you are also quite, quite beautiful."

Battonica's primary eye descended down to his level on a twined tendon strand.

"You see now, Captain Jack, why we must have our revenge? You see what humanity did to me? To all of us?"

Was she playing to an audience?

Jack opened his mouth to argue the point but, faced with the reality in front of him, his words were stillborn.

There was a burst of energy from the eye and Jack was momentarily bathed in a glowing stream of light. It was intense and felt almost solid. It only lasted a second then snapped off. Jack looked down at his palms which pulsated with an internal glow.

"Bling !" he murmured. "I've always been partial to a bit of bling!"

"Goodbye, Captain Jack."

Battonica gave an almost prehistoric roar as her huge barbed tail whipped around, impaling Jack to the crystal wall.

"Is that the best you can do...?" Then Jack frowned, coughing blood. He looked up wonderingly. "Well whaddaya know...."

Jack Harkness died.

*

Somewhere else within the domain of the Schism lay the Hive-Mind.

Inside the cavernous crystalline ball, through the nutrient mists, the Triumvirate descended on sinewy mucus strands, like immense puppets, to hover above the dais.

"The report is ready for ingestion," stated The Magister. He waved a foreleg at the three green cubes on the dais. "Are you ready, my brothers?"

"Oh yes."

"Indeed we are, Magister."

"Then imbibe."

Three huge tongues unfurled simultaneously, each snatching a cube back to its parent maw. There was a period of silence as the Triumvirate digested the report.

At long last the Magister spoke. "It seems that the human is dead for good."

"Indeed."

"Thankful news, Magister."

"And what, my brothers, do you make of the conclusions of Dr Battonica ?"

"Erm..."

"What do YOU make of them, Magister?"

The Magister gave his colleagues a withering look. As always, he had to do their thinking for them. "I am tempted to agree with her conclusion. This humanoid was a freak of nature rather than an engineered super-soldier. Even if the latter, we now know how to kill them. Opinions? "

"I agree, Magister."

"And I."

"This is my...our... judgement on the matter and so recorded." The Magister paused. "Do either of you detect a strangeness in this report. Firstly there is a short period where our sensors failed to transcribe their conversation."

"Deemed a technical fault, Magister."

"Indeed. A problem in the translation matrix, so I understand."

"Hmm...but do you not taste an... affection... in Battonica's report? Towards this human?"

"Now you speak of it..."

"Dr Battonica took an awfully long time to conclude the project..."

"I deem it disgusting," said The Magister. "What would you have us do?"

"Err...Admonishment?"

"Profound Admonishment?"

Fools! " For now we do nothing. We will have her surveilled. At her first slip - and she will slip - we will have her arrested and disposed of. There is no place for feelings of mercy or affection towards the enemy in time of war! Agreed?"

"Oh yes, Magister."

"Very wise, Magister."

"Then our decision is recorded and will be transmitted for executive action. We will give the job to Enforcer Maquidd. "

His colleagues chorused their agreement.

"Now, to the war. With this conclusionn we can proceed to the final victory."

"You mean..."

"The Residue?"

" The humanoids are ever more adept at intercepting our missiles. We must deploy the Residue. I see no impediment now we know they are not indestructable. The decision must be unanimous, of course. Agreed?"

There was, scandalously, a pause. Then;

"Y-Yes, Magister."

"A-Agreed."

As he ascended through the nutrient mists towards his perch, The Magister drooled at the thought of final victory, at the same time plotting to get rid of his useless colleagues.

Perhaps a Triumvirate of one...

(End of Chapter 12)


	13. Kim X

Warp War: Chapter 13: _Kim X_

The day was cold and still. A light smattering of February snow covered the little cemetery.

Despite her recent experiences in that faraway ice-cave some thirty-odd centuries in the future, Kim had not lost her child-like fascination for the white stuff. Covering gardens, roads, buildings without fear or favour. The great equaliser, she called it.

Kim looked down at the little headstone. "_Mik Dekka. Lone Wolf161Beta. Died 6 January 1973. RIP_"

"I hope we spelled his name right," said Jo Grant at Kim's right hand. "It was tattooed on his ankle, along with the rest. They found it at the...postmortem."

"I don't know how he spelled it." said Kim. It was typical of Jo that she hesitated on that last word, fearful of giving offence or stirring bad memories..

Jo's openness and transparent honesty had been a rock for Kim over the past six weeks. And her bravery of course. Her bravery on THAT day.

Despite herself, Kim's mind drifted back ...

*

The Doctor had not stayed long, that first day at Ashbridge Cottage hospital. Of course, Kim had not accepted him as THE Doctor at the time. She had thought he was some impostor. A paternalistic dandy, clad in velvet.

He was clearly bursting to question her in depth but Kim, a hostage to her disappointment and frustration, ignored all of his attempts to engage her in conversation and stared silently at the window in her room.

At length she saw Jo Grant give a little shake of her head in the Doctor's direction.

"Well, I'll come and see you again soon, my dear," he said. There an edge to his voice. He was miffed. The door banged behind him, slightly too loud.

"He's a bit impatient," said Jo, by way of apology. "He's curious, that's all. We all are to be honest."

Kim turned her head to face Jo. "Later." she said. "I'm shattered."

Jo smiled and gathered her bag. "I'll leave you to rest. I'll be back tomorrow. If you need me before then just tell the nurses. I can be here in thirty minutes."

At the door Jo paused. "I don't even know your name."

"Kim..." was the blurted response . Kim just managed to bite her lip before she followed up with her surname.

That radiant smile again. "Well, that's a start. See you, Kim." The door closed quietly behind her.

Kim remembered thinking: Damn it, Jo Grant. You're _good_!

*

Despite her protestations of fatigue Kim barely slept that night. She had a lot of hard thinking to do. Snatches of memory pulled her this way and that.

Firstly there was this Doctor character. She knew that the Doctor had been many men. She had met most of them at Thamesford Library where their paths had crossed over many years, before _her _Doctor had rescued her from all that.

But she had never met this one.

Then, out of the blue it came to her. Dredged from her memory. A snatched conversation with her colleague Millie (not a friend, of course) over a cup of coffee at the library the day after Kim had met the Doctor for the first time – the version with the eyes and the teeth and the long scarf:

"_I met him about two years ago. Spent an afternoon flicking through the whole of the transport section, if I remember rightly. A proper gentleman. Very suave. Velvet jacket and frilly shirt." _

Very suave, Millie had said. Velvet jacket and frilly shirt.

That sounded like him. And if Jo was to be believed he had a Tardis as well. A Tardis they had used to rescue her from the ice-cave. And Jo was to be believed, Kim was sure of it.

So she added up the factors. She was here in 1973, rescued by a man called the Doctor with a Tardis. She felt sure that she wasn't dreaming. There was only one conclusion. This was the same man in an earlier form.

Alarm bells sounded in Kim's mind. The Doctor's voice suddenly sprang up in her head - so real that she glanced around the darkening room involuntarily to make sure he wasn't there. _Her_ Doctor.

"_We're in paradox territory, Kim." _

They were the words he had used back in the Malvern Hills, when she had first encountered the Torchwood organisation. The Doctor had been anxious about perverting history then and so was Kim, now.

If she let too much out, revealed too much of the Doctor's future to his earlier self what would be the consequences? Would he never meet Kim? Would she change his future? Would he disappear up his own exhaust?

These thoughts revolved around Kim's mind until nearly daybreak. It was only then that she realised how she would play it. The answer was so simple she wondered why she hadn't thought of it before. She really was exhausted now and, lulled by the sound of the pump driving warm water around her body, she fell asleep.

*

When she woke up Jo Grant was there.

"Morning, Kim," she said brightly. "Breakfast is on the way. How are you feeling today?"

"OK, thanks." Kim had affected a frown. " You called me Kim. Is that my name?"

It was Jo's turn to frown. "That's what you told me last night."

"Did I? I'm sorry, I can't remember. Anything."

And so she played the amnesia card. She played it from that day to this.

Not that she liked deceiving Jo Grant. Far from it. But it was a necessary evil. The only way she could give herself time to try and get a handle on all this.

So she became officially known as 'Kim X'. She saw it written on her hospital chart.

After four weeks in hospital she was discharged into the care of UNIT. A little room had been found for her in the accommodation block at their HQ. It was a temporary measure, Jo Grant had confirmed. Until they could arrange something with the local council.

After a couple of days there the Doctor had appeared at her door, accompanied by Jo.

He had a holdall with him. "I've got some things here, my dear," he had said. "They may help jog your memory."

He had pulled out a small transparent envelope. It contained a thin metal square, about the size of a postage stamp.

"This was taken from the body of your late companion. It was under the skin of his temple. It is completely inert now but I think it was some kind of advanced monitoring chip, feeding directly into his brain. Does it mean anything to you?"

Kim shook her head, looking blank.

"The technology corresponds to the 52nd Century. That was where we found you both. You don't have anything like this, Kim. You were X-rayed at Ashbridge on the first day. We think you are near- contemporary to this era."

Kim raised her eyebrows.

"We had a dentist look at your teeth while you were unconscious," put in Jo. "He confirmed that your dental work was somewhat advanced, but recognisable."

Darn, thought Kim. I was right. You _are_ good.

"So how did I get to the 52nd Century, then?"

The Doctor pulled out a contraption of metal and wiring from the holdall. Kim recognised it at once. It was the emergency beacon Mik Dekka had lashed up, back in the ice cave.

The Doctor looked at her quickly. Kim wondered whether anything had showed on her face.

"This is how we traced you." He held up the small beacon module from Dekka's ship. "A transmitter of some sort. But this -" He held up the power source, "- this is Tardis technology."

"Tardis?"

"I explained about the Doctor's ship," said Jo. Was there a hint of testiness in her voice?

"Oh yes. Sorry."

"But this is not from my ship. At least not as it is now."

"I wish I could help."

The Doctor sighed. "I believe it was the use of Tardis technolgy as a power source that punched your distress call back through time. Although why to 1973 I don't know."

He flicked a switch and a crackly voice, Kim's voice, spoke:

_...Can you hear me? We are dying here...help me....Doctor...please help me..._

For a second Kim wavered. In that second she was back in the ice-cave with poor dead Mik Dekka, and their message in a bottle.

She recovered herself. "Is that me?"

Jo nodded. "We did voice pattern checks. There's no doubt. Doesn't anything help you remember, Kim? The slightest thing?" Jo looked needy, almost desperate.

Kim felt like a heel as she shook her head.

The Doctor looked at her thoughtfully. She could almost feel him scratching about inside her mind.

"There's always hypnosis, "he said. "That could give us the answers."

You don't want the answers, thought Kim.

"The Doctor has this talent. It's all very simple. A spinning mirror, nothing to worry about..." Jo looked eager.

No chance thought Kim. "I'll have to think about it..." she said, uncertainly.

And so she stonewalled them. With some skill, if she said so herself. She played Kim X to the letter.

But then there had been THAT day. The day it nearly all went up in flames.

*

It had been back at Ashbridge Cottage Hospital, the third day after she had recovered consciousness.

The nurses had attended to her as normal first thing and her physician had come in to see her. They were going to remove the warm-water device this morning, he had said. She could start to get up and about. Get dressed. Feed herself.

Amen to that, Kim had thought.

A technician had arrived to turn off the pump and remove the plastic tubing that had enclosed her.

A nurse then cut away some of the bandages and dressing. Kim had delightedly flexed her right hand. It looked a little wrinkled and pale but otherwise OK. She waited for the nurse to remove the rest of her bandages but when she turned to look, the nurse had gone and Jo Grant sat in her normal place.

"Oh. Hello, Jo," said Kim. She waved her hand at her visitor. "They say I can get up and about today."

"That's great, "said Jo, but there was a flicker of the eyes. Kim noticed that Jo's hands were trembling slightly.

"Are you OK?"

Jo pursed her lips. "You know that you were very ill when we brought you here."

Kim frowned. "You've told me. Lucky to be alive."

Jo nodded. "You are. The man who was with you didn't make it..."

"What is it, Jo? Spit it out."

"I'm sorry, Kim. You didn't get through completely unscathed."

Slowly, Kim looked down at her still bandaged left side.

Jo took hold of Kim's right hand, meshing their fingers.

"I'm sorry, Kim. They had to amputate your left hand."

*

The memory of that horrible day brought Kim back to the present. To the little snow-kissed cemetery and Mik Dekka's headstone.

It was really the memory of Jo Grant's bravery that shone brightest in the whole sorry saga.

In volunteering to tell Kim in the first place and her subsequent support over the weeks, Jo had earned Kim's undying gratitude and respect. If their roles had been reversed Kim doubted she could have done it.

But it was small comfort. Here she stood, her left arm in a sling. She had an appointment in two weeks for a prosthetic fitting. She smiled grimly. What was she going to end up with in 1973? Something out of a shop window? The hand of a mannequin? Or worse, some kind of hook?

_Oh, Doctor. Was this the destiny you saw for me?_

She looked down at the little headstone. Perhaps you are the lucky one, Mik, thought Kim as a black cloud of depression rolled in.

It was strange. She could picture Mik Dekka's face with razor-sharp clarity, despite knowing him for just about a week. Those sunken, rather sad eyes, the sallow complexion and the albino-white fuzz of hair. She could picture him more clearly than her long-dead mother, even.

The idea came to her with the physicality of a slapped face. Such was its impact that Kim actually staggered and Jo Grant grabbed hold of her right arm, fearing that Kim was about to faint.

Jo led her away towards her car. She was saying something soothing but Kim didn't hear. Her own thoughts were too loud.

_Long dead? Jeez...this is 1973..._

OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD!

_Her MOTHER...!_

(End of Chapter 13)


	14. Daytripper

Warp War: Chapter 14:_Daytripper_

It felt like a council of war.

The Doctor, Jo and Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart sat in the latter's modest office in the UNIT admin block. The Brigadier looked pointedly at his watch.

"I have a meeting with the Parliamentary Appropriations committee in twenty minutes so we need to crack on. What is it you wanted to say, Miss Grant?"

"It's Kim X, sir. She's made a request. She wants to go into London for the day."

"Seems reasonable enough to me. Do her good to get out and about. I'll authorise a rail warrant for both of you - "

"She wants to go alone, sir."

"Alone?"

"She was emphatic about that."

The Brigadier sucked in air through his teeth. "I don't think so, Miss Grant. We may never see her again."

"She's not your prisoner you know, Lethbridge Stewart," murmured the Doctor. "If she wanted to walk out of here today, I don't see how you could legally stop her."

"UNIT's remit is to deal with the unusual. I'm sure you agree that a contemporary woman rescued from the far future who then suffers a convenient memory loss is at least unusual, Doctor."

"UNIT's remit also concerns global security. Do you really think she is a threat, Brigadier?"

"She is disabled, confused." said Jo. "I got the idea that this really means something to her. A step back towards independance."

"What is your proposal, Miss Grant?"

"Well, I think we should agree. But keep her under surveillance. We might get some clues about her if we find out where she goes, whether she meets anybody and so on."

"What do you think, Doctor?"

"Well, as you won't let me hypnotise her without consent, because that would require a court order – blasted red tape – this seems the next best thing. Just leave me out of your James Bond shenanigans."

The Brigadier looked at his watch again. "Very well, Miss Grant. But we can't run to a surveillance team on the ground, resources being what they are. Go and see supply about a homer and tracking equipment. You can oversee the operation remotely. It's in your hands, Miss Grant. Your responsibility."

Jo gulped. "Yes sir."

*

"Are you sure you'll be OK on your own ?" asked Jo Grant, not for the first time.

Kim nodded

They were standing on the chilly railway platform just a few days on from Jo discussing Kim's request with the Brigadier and the Doctor. The sky was threatening snow again and they were both wrapped up well.

Kim had a big (read shapeless) long coat trimmed at the collar with imitation fur. Heaven knows where Jo had dredged it up but it was at least warm. Her stunted left arm was held in a sling underneath.

This had been insisted upon by the rather dishy new medic at UNIT HQ who had just been transferred from the Navy on temporary secondment.

"It's healed very well, " Lt Sullivan had said as he had examined the stump of Kim's left forearm. "You don't really need a sling as such but as this is your first time out you need to make sure you keep it protected. The sling will be a reminder."

And he had dressed her arm and constructed the sling with good-humoured efficiency.

"You've got your money safe?" fretted Jo. "And you'll call me from a phone box when you're on the way back? Eight o'clock at the latest, remember?"

God Jo, you sound just like my mother.

The irony did not escape Kim.

Jo looked at her. "You will be coming back, won't you? I've gone out on a limb for you, Kim." A momentary horror played on Jo's face when she realised what she said. "Sorry!"

Kim actually laughed.

At last the train arrived, a little four-carriage diesel on the local line.

Out of habit Kim waited for the doors to automatically hiss open for her before remembering where and when she was. She fumbled with the handle before Jo helped her.

The carriage was empty, dirty and smelled of stale cigarettes.

"Take care," called Jo anxiously, as the train pulled out on its twenty minute journey into the capital.

A few flakes of snow started to fall as Jo made her way back to the car park. She opened up the boot of her car and adjusted a switch on the bulky cathode ray screen she found there. The screen lit up and a map overlay was displayed. The blinking blip that was the tiny transmitter Jo had secreted in the lining of Kim's coat crawled across the screen.

James Bond Shenanigans. That's what the Doctor had called it.

Shrugging, Jo closed the boot and set off for UNIT HQ, wondering if she would ever see Kim X again.

(End of Chapter 14)


	15. Another Time, Another Place

Warp War: Chapter 15: _Another Time, Another Place_

The moving strip of scenery outside the carriage window gave Kim little clue as to the nature of the world she was venturing into. It was covered with a layer of snow and the houses, factories and fields were rendered anonymous. She could easily have been taking the same journey in 2009.

But she wasn't. This was 1973 and Kim was planning to roam around on a beach of her childhood, leaving footprints in the sand where there were supposed to be none.

_We're in paradox territory, Kim._

The Doctor's words kept knocking at her thoughts. She would have to be very, very careful.

The train made a couple of scheduled stops on the way in but there were few passengers venturing out in the inclement weather and the sky was threatening another dump of snow.

Kim was still alone in her carriage when the train pulled into the terminus at Marylebone. She had fretted about the stiff, unforgiving door handle she would have to negotiate one-handed when she reached the station. However, a passing railway guard opened all the doors and Kim stepped gratefully down onto the chilly platform that had only been partially cleared of snow.

In accordance with her pre-planning Kim quickly made for the nearest unoccupied bench and sat, watching her fellow passengers from other carriages disembark. She had been surprised when UNIT had agreed so quickly to her request for this trip and suspected that she was under surveillance.

Kim watched the departing passengers, looking for someone following her but they had all scurried to the exits paying her no attention whatsoever.

For the next half hour Kim moved around the station, from bench to bench, on the platforms and in the concourse. Somewhat bemused, she peoplewatched for much of the time.

It was the men she noticed as markedly different. A profusion of long, permed hair, droopy moustaches and sideburns. Most people were wrapped up against the cold but Kim noticed many a pair of flared trousers and Doc Marten boots.

There was a noticeable number of cigarettes being smoked then casually discarded. But it what there _wasn't_ that was most marked. No mobile phones, iPods, ear-pods. No people switched off and isolated in their own little worlds.

Kim smiled as a couple of girls tripped past on high-heeled platform boots. One carried a bag with a Donny Osmond illustration and the other passed close enough for Kim to spot her David Cassidy badge. Sisters, Kim imagined. Some right old fights there then!

After a while acclimatising herself Kim looked at her watch. It was midday. She was pretty sure that she wasn't being followed (that or they were_ very_ good). She had considered whether she had been bugged fairly early on, but decided there was little she could do if she was. There were just too many hiding places in her clothing or shoes that UNIT had provided her with. They might even have irradiated her food. Still, the next part of her plan would go someway to masking her tracks.

There again, maybe she was just being paranoid.

She made her way over to the ticket office and bought a ticket for the underground.

About half an hour later Kim was meandering down Oxford Street, goggling at the shop windows with their ridiculously low prices - a loaf of bread for 10 pence in one small grocery (they still called it 'New Pence'. Kim remembered that decimalisation was just celebrating its second anniversary in the UK).

To get out of the cold Kim popped into a record store and wallowed in vinyl nostalgia. Glam-Rock blasted at her eardrums.

_You'd better watch out if you've got long black hair...Blockbuster...!_

She eventually left the store when the fog of tobacco (and maybe other kinds of smoke) proved too much for her 21st Century sensibilities.

Kim stood gathering her senses, watching the old buses and cars passing in a steady stream. Although this was her city and all the sights and sounds around her had informed her formative years, she realised that she was in a world as alien as any she had visited with the Doctor.

Her teeth chattering with cold, Kim set out to find a nice warm coffee-house but only succeeded in finding a rather seedy cafe. On the way she purchased a daily newspaper from a stand and browsed through it as she drank her cardboard cup of muddy water, sitting at the smeared Formica table.

_Three-day Week...Power Cuts....Conflict in Ireland...Speculation about Princess Anne's wedding dress...Nixon announces Vietnam peace deal...Watergate burglars convicted...Public sector workers set to strike...Manchester United – will they be relegated? _

Most poignantly, Kim's eyes lingered over a small item on an inside page.

_World Trade Center dedicated in New York City._

She sipped her drink thinking, this is not right. I shouldn't be here. Not with all this....power.

Kim left the rest of her drink and newspaper on the table and went out into the street.

Her arm throbbed in its sling and Kim could still feel the ghost of her left hand. All in all she had managed remarkably well so far. There had been the occasional irritations; such as how, exactly do you remove the glove on your only hand to rummage in your purse for money? (use your teeth). Worse still, how do you get the glove back on? (ask for help!) The sling had been a good idea by Lt Sullivan. Kim had often gone to automatically use her left hand, which may have further damaged her stump.

She walked briskly to the nearest Tube station and travelled to Trafalgar Square, lost in thought.

She spent the next couple of hours in the timeless warmth of the National Portrait Gallery. Looking into the past and, temporarily, putting aside thoughts of her immediate future.

*

Kim looked at her watch and decided she couldn't put it off any longer. Up to now she could explain her journey as a day out in the big city, seeing some of the sights. But this next bit would be more difficult to explain to UNIT.

Kim decided that, if necessary, she would explain it as a mistake. She had been lost, confused and got off at the wrong stop. Yes, that would have to do, thought Kim, as she stood in line and bought a ticket for Thamesford.

*

Thamesford Underground station was nearly deserted as Kim alighted.

No escalators here. She climbed the stairway and exited into a chilly early evening. The sky was beginning to disgorge its load and heavy snowflakes began to drift down to augment the smattering on the ground.

Kim's heart thudded in her chest. She was on home turf now. Although the cars and the people and the houses looked different Kim revelled in a degree of familiarity as she walked down Station Road, Left at Congleton Hill, the brief climb to the junction at Mowbray Island, left again down Farmer Road. No satellite dishes, noted Kim.

She paused at the old Argyle Cinema. It looked ragged and tired. Kim had only ever seen it in old photographs. It would be demolished in 1977 and in Kim's time was a small mall of identikit shops.

She stared at the cinema poster for a moment.

_'Saturday for seven days. Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman in Papillon!'_

She had never heard of it.

Left into Parkmeadow Road.

Her breath shallowed as she stood outside the Thamesford Library where one day she would rule. It looked square and utilitarian. 'The Bunker', it was nicknamed locally. Kim could see why. It wouldn't change much over the next forty years. Kim walked on past the library car park where, one day, the Doctor would park his Tardis and whisk her away.

_Or would he...?_

On past Lampwick Park, dark and foreboding. She was almost on automatic now, following the route she had taken thousands of times before. But her mind was racing.

_What am I doing...I feel sick...._

Before she knew it she had turned into Shackleton Road. It was snowy and deserted. She slowed, stopping under a flickering street lamp.

There it was. Number 10. The big old house her mother had inherited from a maiden aunt and had struggled to maintain until her death. It had then become Kim's burden.

There was more privet hedging than Kim remembered, framing the little black iron gate. And there was the big oak tree in the front garden which her mother had had felled, when, in five years time?

So here she was. Clever old Kim. But she had no idea what to do next. The thought of going up the path and ringing the bell filled her with stomach-churning dread. Kim could see the kitchen light, through the trees. Alarm bells were ringing in her head. Maybe this was as far as she should take it.

But fate intervened.

The gate squeaked and a teenage-boy came out. He was well muffled against the snow and carried a large delivery bag, slung over his shoulder.

The paper-boy.

He turned away, hurrying off up the road. The iron gate clanged behind him but swung open. Automatically, Kim took a step forward to close it properly. As she did so a little girl strolled out. A toddler. She was smothered in a too-large anorak, layers of warm clothes, two scarves and a pair of gloves.

She was singing to herself, chasing snowflakes. Headlights lit her up as she stood in the middle of the road.

What happened next was a matter of feet and inches, angles and happenstance.

If Kim had not taken a step forward to close the gate, she wouldn't have been within reach. If she had been facing the other way then she would only have been within reach of her missing left hand. And one could speculate forever on the quirk of fate that put Kim at this very spot, at this very time, in the first place.

As it was, Kim took a couple of paces forward and grabbed the little girl's hood with her right hand, simultaneously pulling her back onto the pavement. The approaching car skidded slightly, mowing through the exact spot that the child had stood. It sounded an angry horn before screaming off, it's rear wheels spinning and churning snow. A brown Ford Cortina.

Kim looked down at the shocked face of her three-year old self. The child's bottom lip was quivering and she burst into tears.

"KIM!"

Big Kim and Little Kim turned as a woman screamed from the garden gate.

She ran over snatching up the child. "Oh, Kimberley. My little Kimbo!"

She spun to face the adult Kim who was frozen into immobility.

"I saw it all. T-thank you so much."

Kim found herself looking into the flushed and grateful face of her 'long-dead' mother, Muriel Gideon.

(End of Chapter 15)


	16. Mom, Dad and Two Kims

Warp War: Chapter 16:_ Mom, Dad and Two Kims_

Kim tried to maintain a semblance of calm but she was trembling like a leaf.

There she was. Her mother, walking, talking, breathing. Alive, rather than scattered to the four winds in Thamesford Crematorium!

Muriel Gideon was approaching her twenty-fourth year as she stood holding her three year-old daughter protectively in the half light of Shackleton Road. She was a little fatter in the face than Kim remembered but she had the same straw-coloured hair, tied back from her strong face. She was dressed in a rather shapeless baggy sweater, which appeared bottle-green in this light, and her ubiquitous plaid skirt.

Kim was speechless, watching snowflakes settle on her mother and Little Kim.

_Oh my God,_ screamed her inner self.

She half expected some cosmic force to obliterate the three of them as they stood there – to erase this aberration and start all over again.

_We're in paradox territory, Kim._..

But no, nothing happened. Kim had just saved her own life. How bonkers was that!

Fortunately Muriel was doing all the talking. Kim couldn't have spoken for all the riches of a lottery rollover, although her infant self apparently had no problem wailing into the night.

"That bloody paper boy! I've told him about the gate before. That's it, I'm cancelling the paper in the morning. There, there Kimbo. It's alright now. Thanks to this lady. Look, you must come in for a coffee or something. It's the least I can do. It's freezing out here and you look like you've seen a ghost."

_Oh, Mom. If only you knew!_

"No really...I've got to get on..." Kim mumbled and half-turned away.

Hold the 'phone!

She caught sight of her mother in silhouette profile and, as they say, stood back in amazement. "You...you're pregnant!" Kim gasped.

Muriel smiled. "You make it sound like a crime. Yes, I'm about 5 months gone. Look, it's not doing me any good out here either. Come in and have a coffee. I'm so grateful to you. We both are." She patted little Kim's head.

Utterly bewildered, Kim allowed herself to be led down the path, to the familiar old house and into the kitchen.

It was a lot brighter than Kim remembered. Vinyl wallpaper of yellow sunflowers, positively reeking of 1970's 'fashion'. Her mother filled a kettle and put it on the stove, then waved Big Kim and Little Kim through to the rather cosy living room.

"Let me take your coat -" Muriel frowned as she caught sight of Kim's empty left sleeve and frowned again when she caught sight of her shortened left arm in its sling.

"Frostbite," said Kim in answer to the unasked question. "On holiday. In the Alps." She flopped gratefully onto the unremembered brown couch.

Muriel shook her head wonderingly. "Then this makes what you did, out there, with one-hand, even more amazing." She gave Kim a sudden hug and her familiar scent filled Kim's nostrils.

Muriel pulled back and seemed to swat away a tear. In the kitchen the kettle spluttered a whistle. "I'll get the coffee."

Kim watched her go. She saw her little self struggling to remove her anorak and reached across a helping hand to unstick the zipper. Little Kim said nothing but looked up at her with saucer-eyes. She looked scared to death. Did she know something? Sense something?

"I'm frightened too," whispered Kim.

The girl blinked and scuttled away onto an armchair to grasp an old raggedy doll protectively to her.

_Her Mother. Five months pregnant!_

There was a tragedy in the making here. Kim had no siblings. No brother or sister. It must mean that her mother had lost the baby and had kept it secret from her. Poor sod!.

How might her life been different with a brother or sister to share it with? Kim's mind was still mulling this over when Muriel returned, carrying a tray with two cups of coffee and a small plate of assorted biscuits.

"Biscuits!" exclaimed a delighted Little Kim.

"You wait your turn, Missie. She handed Big Kim a coffee and balanced the biscuits on the arm of the couch."I don't even know your name."

Kin opened her mouth:

I_'m Kim Gideon. Your daughter grown up. I'm fifteen years older than you, my own mother and yet, at the same time that's me over there, eyeing up the biscuits. What do you make of that?_

At the last moment her mind veered away, latching onto the first name that came into her head.

"I'm Jo," she said, "Jo Grant."

"Well, Jo. I'm Muriel and that is my little Kim over there. Thank heavens we met you. I was watching Kim from the kitchen window. Saw her go out through the gate. But I couldn't get there in time." She took a sip of her coffee. Kim noticed that her mother's hand was still trembling. "I was thinking, in the kitchen, the papers would be interested in this. You know, with your...disability. Maybe even the television...." She looked at Kim over the top of her cup.

Kim shook her head slightly. God, that was the last thing she needed.

Muriel pursed her lips. "Well, I hope you can wait to see my husband. He should be home from work anytime now. He will want to thank you for what you did."

Kim choked on her coffee, and fell victim to a paroxysm of coughing that saw an alarmed Muriel slapping her back.

HUSBAND! WHAT BLOODY HUSBAND?

This can't be right. Kim had been brought up as an only child by a lone-parent who struggled to make ends meet. She couldn't have kept all this from her, surely?

When she had recovered her composure, Kim spotted the plain gold band on her mother's third finger.

GOD!

"Are you OK?"

"Yes..coffee just went down the wrong way. Sorry. Did you say husband?"

"Yes. He should be home in a minute."

"H-How long have you been married?"

"It's our fifth anniversary next week."

Kim felt the beginnings of an almighty headache as her mind swam. Was she even in the right house?

"You are Muriel Gideon?" she said at last .

Her mother frowned. "That was my maiden name, "she said. She gave Kim a long searching look. "Do I know you? Have we already met?"

"I used to live round here, " mumbled Kim. "A long time ago."

Muriel's face cleared. "I'm Muriel Smith now. " There was the noise of a lock being turned in the front door.

"Daddy," cried a delighted Little Kim. She scrambled out of the chair and ran through to hallway.

Muriel followed her quickly and Kim heard a brief conversation of murmured voices float through from the hall.

Muriel appeared at the open door, along with her husband and Little Kim who was hanging on to her father's hand.

"Jo, this is my husband, John."

"Well, Jo. Muriel told me what happened. Thank you so much. From all of us."

Kim rose to her feet, the plate of biscuits falling unheeded from the arm of the couch.

Since her journeys through time and space began, Kim had been rendered unconscious more than once. She had thought it an occupational hazard. But she had never fainted in all her life.

As she looked at Muriel's husband her vision swam.

He was dressed in anonymous working clothes rather than his favourite duffel coat and morphing T-Shirt. But his lank, permed hair was the same, as were his twinkling eyes, near- lantern chin and his nasal, West Country accent.

It was the man she had last seen a lifetime ago, thousands of years into the future. The man whose last words to her before the collision with Mik Dekka's ship had been a hastily screamed, "Time Ram!"

_Muriel's husband...the father of the unborn baby...Kim's Dad...HER Dad..._

It was, of course, the Doctor!

Kim fainted.

(End of Chapter 16)


	17. Running Out of Her Skin

Warp War: Chapter 17: _Running Out of Her Skin_

Jo Grant nibbled on an apple and made a note in the log she was keeping.

The blip on the monitor in front of her had been stationary for a while now. It was superimposed on a map of London. Kim X was being tracked by a secret UNIT satellite and Jo thought how nice it would be to have some kind of Satellite Navigation system in her own little car, to stop her getting lost so often.

Jo sighed. Ah well. Not in her lifetime.

She looked at her log again. Nothing really surprising. Kim had done the usual tourist haunts, Oxford Street, Trafalgar Square, the National Portrait Gallery. But this excursion to an otherwise unremarkable Borough on the outskirts of the capital was a puzzler. Unless she was just lost. Perhaps Kim had ditched her coat and done a runner. Maybe the Brig had been right after all.

Jo's mind wandered to the invitation out she had just received out of the blue from Mike Yates. A Night on the Town, he had said. A West End show and a slap-up meal in a posh restaurant. Jo had been so surprised she had said yes. Mike seemed as surprised as she was that she had accepted. Some time next week he had stammered, blushing. He'd arrange the tickets.

It would give her a chance to doll up a bit. She was still deciding what to wear when she noticed that the blip was moving again. She looked at her watch and scribbled another note in the log.

*

The blip had been stationary at Marylebone Station for about twenty minutes when the phone went off.

Jo let it ring for a while. She didn't want Kim to think she was hanging on for the call.

"Hello?"

"It's me, " said Kim's crackly voice. "I'm at Marylebone. The next train is due out in 15 minutes."

"OK. I'll meet you on the platform this end, " said Jo. "Did you have a good day?"

But the phone was dead.

Jo picked up her car keys. At least Kim was coming back !

*

Jo was waiting on the dark and deserted platform when the little train drew up from Marylebone, brakes screeching.

She saw a single door open and the figure of Kim X get out of the rear carriage, the door slamming behind her.

Jo waved and walked towards the stationary figure as the train drew off.

"Hello -" Jo broke off. Kim was staring into space, her face chalky white in the shadows.

She's overdone it, thought Jo. I should have gone with her. Insisted.

She draped an arm gently around Kim's shoulders, being careful to avoid her sling. "Come on. Let's get you back to HQ. You look as though you've seen a ghost!"

Kim turned big eyes on Jo and and shivered uncontrollably as she was led away.

*

Kim flopped onto her bed in her room in the accommodation block at UNIT HQ and stared at the ceiling. She didn't bother to change out of her clothes. In her head the replay machine was grinding over and over. She couldn't shut it off.

*

She had fainted!

Only a couple of seconds but there it was...

She had woken to a gentle tapping on her cheek.

"Is she alright? She looks awfully pale?"

"I think there's some smelling salts in the bathroom cabinet, Muriel."

_Muriel...her mother...1973...10 Shackleton Road...her father...THE DOCTOR..._

Memories flooded back and Kim's eyes snapped open. The Doctor was leaning over her. "Are you OK, Jo?" he said.

She jumped back a country mile, ending up at the other end of the sofa, curled up in a fetal ball. "What the hell's going on?" she hissed.

He looked taken aback by her intensity. "You fainted. Just for a moment."

"I don't mean that! What the hell do you think you're playing at ?"

"Sorry?" he looked bemused. In fact he looked so bemused that Kim doubted her own senses. She stared at him. It WAS him. No doubt about it.

His bemusement changed to clear discomfort as she stared at him with big eyes, just as Little Kim was staring at her. She heard her mother's footsteps, coming down the stairs.

"Doctor -" she hissed.

"I'm not a doctor. I'm a postman," said the man in front of her. "Do you want me to call a doctor?"

She could have laughed.

Just then her mother came into the room. "I couldn't find the smelling salts, John. Are you sure – Oh, you're awake. Are you feeling alright, Jo?"

STOP CALLING ME THAT! Kim screamed, inside her head.

"I think we should call a doctor," said John.

Kim looked into his eyes momentarily. There was something missing. Christ, he's not acting!

Kim shook her head and got shakily to her feet. As she did so her gaze slid over her mother's shoulder to the far wall. She saw many framed photographs. Of her mother and 'John'.

She recognised the couple at the Registry Office, arm in arm. Then on some sunny beach, probably Weston-Super-Mare. Then at a hospital, her mother cradling baby Kim with her husband looking down proudly at her.

I_t's our fifth anniversary next week_, Muriel had said.

She looked at her mother's swollen belly. The brother or sister she never had.

A terrible welling claustrophobia overtook her. She felt tiny, dwarfed even by her infant self.

"I've got to go," she mumbled. "Thanks for the coffee..."

"Are you sure you're well enough?" asked a concerned Muriel.

Kim didn't answer and virtually barged past her impossible parents, snatched up her coat, ran out through the front door and down the path.

At the gate she turned and looked back. Muriel was standing there, framed in the light. Behind her, holding Little Kim in his arms was her....

Kim couldn't think it.

The couple waved.

"Thank you!" called Muriel. The door closed.

Kim ran down Shackleton Road. Never mind the lack of balance from her slinged-arm or the slippery snow underfoot. She had to get as far away from that nightmare house as she could. Even if it meant running out of her own skin.

She fell twice but felt no pain. The second time she was helped up by a passer-by who let her go with a start when he saw the look on her face. He glanced up the road nervously, half-expecting to see the hounds of hell on her trail.

She ran until she could run no more and panted for breath in the cold evening air.

She was at Thamesford Tube Station.

Kim had straightened up, controlled her breathing with an effort and entered.

*

Kim slept fitfully that night. She kept waking from the safety of sleep to the nightmare of reality as her incredulous mind raced.

Before her last snatch of sleep Kim had decided to come clean with Jo in the morning. Tell her everything and see if the Doctor – Jo's Doctor – could do something, anything, about this mess.

But when the first bird staring singing in the morning and Kim awoke she found herself possessed by a cold anger. Ever since poor old Mik Dekka had inadvertently kidnapped her she had been tossed around from pillar to post like a rag doll. A victim of events.

She showered and dressed, ignoring the sensible sling recommended by Lt Sullivan. She tied off the sleeve of her left arm with a knot, which she found difficult with one hand but she persevered all the same.

No, it was about time that Kim Gideon took things into her own...

She smiled tightly at the thought.

She arranged a piece of paper on the tiny desk, pinning it down with a paper-weight.

And she began to write...

(End of Chapter 17)


	18. Athena

Warp War: Chapter 18: _Athena_

Jo Grant looked up as Sergeant Benton popped his head around the door.

"Hello," she said. "Fancy a coffee?"

"No time, Jo. I've got some recruits to train. A right shower."

Jo giggled. "You sound more and more like the Brig every day."

Benton made a face. "Look , Jo, that Kim X person..."

"Yes?"

"She's under your wing isn't she?"

"Sort of. Why?"

"She just asked me for a stamp, about ten minutes ago."

"Stamp? As in postage stamp? Did you give her one ?"

Benton nodded. " I think she's gone down to the village to post a letter. Have I done something wrong?"

Jo shrugged and shook her head. "Thanks for letting me know."

Benton disappeared down the corridor.

Jo thought for a moment then picked up the phone. She consulted her little black book and rang the number for her contact – the village postmistress.

*

So it was that Jo Grant returned to UNIT HQ just over an hour later, bearing Kim's intercepted letter in her bag. She set it out on the Doctor's workbench and looked at the envelope again.

_Mr J. Smith  
__10 Shackleton Road,  
__Thamesford,  
__London_.

It was marked 'PRIVATE' in the bottom left-hand corner.

Jo held it up to the light. It appeared to contain a single sheet of paper.

Taking a decision, Jo at last used something from her 6-months training at spy-school. Namely, using a nearby kettle, she carefully steamed the letter open.

She read the page quickly. It was quite short but her eyes widened at the signature:

_yours sincerely,  
__Jo Grant_

Jo stared at the letter for some time. Just what kind of game are you playing, Kim X ?

Should she take it up the line? To the Brigadier? Or the Doctor?

Jo sighed. She photocopied both the letter and the envelope, then carefully re-folded the sheet and resealed the letter with PVA adhesive.

Jo picked up the 'phone and dialed the village postmistress. "It's Jo Grant here. I'm bringing the item back. Yes...it can go on to its destination."

*

Jo played a waiting game for the next couple of days. But she still made a few checks.

She had the UNIT archivist look up the 1971 Census entry for 10 Shackleton Road. Sure enough there was John Smith, Postman, his wife and nine month-old child.

She arranged for a UNIT operative to pop round in the guise of an Electricity Meter-reader. He reported back that there was nothing out of the ordinary at the house.

Jo carefully avoided Kim until Friday when they bumped into each other in the little HQ car park. She was sure Kim had engineered the meeting.

After exchanging some pleasantries Jo turned to go but Kim put out her hand to stay her.

Here it comes...

"Jo, I'm going into London again tomorrow. I think it will do me good. I might take in one or two of the big parks now that the weather's getting better. I was wondering..."

"You need some money? No problem. I'll get some out of petty cash and drop it off at your place tonight after I've finished. I can give you a lift to the station again tomorrow, if you like. OK?"

Kim nodded, smiled and turned away.

Oh boy, thought Jo, you are the most _awful_ liar, Kim!

*

_I am unit ATH-129A. A product of Silication Inc, San Fernando. Manufactured under the Emergency Powers Act, 5218 AD. _

_Only...he christened me Athena. When he customised me. Before I was placed in his head and linked with his beautiful, beautiful brain. Oh, my Mik Dekka..._

_So I think of myself as Athena. I think of the wonderful years we spent together. When I nurtured him, monitored him, restored him. I could blush when I think of the EroDreams I gave him. With me in the starring role of course. When we became as one._

_Only, as I am a collection of phasing electrons, I cannot blush._

_If I could weep for my poor Mik Dekka I would. He is dead and I am ripped inert from his head. I wish I was with him still. _

_There is only the Intruder with me now. The Intruder bullies and harangues me, bending me to his will. I resist at first but he grinds me down with his incessant nagging. If I had an arm the Intruder would surely have it twisted up my back._

_So I wait. We wait. Ready to pounce._

*

The Doctor's lab at UNIT HQ was dark and silent when Jo Grant popped her head round the door.

She had just finished at Kim's room in the accommodation block, where she had given Kim some money for her journey tomorrow.

Jo had popped in to see the Doctor but he wasn't there. She was about to go when she saw a jumble of equipment littering his workbench. She sighed and went over to it.

Jo had lost count of the number of times she had told the Doctor about locking away his equipment at night, but he seemed oblivious to the niceties of basic security procedures.

Perhaps Liz Shaw had been right when she had returned to Cambridge. "All the Doctor needs is for someone to say how great he is. That and to make him a cup of tea and clean up after him now and again."

Jo smiled as she remembered those words.

Amongst the jumble she saw the tiny bio-chip that had been recovered from Mik Dekka's skull. She reached for it.

There was an electrical spark from the chip that lit up the room for an instant.

Jo Grant staggered back and slumped senseless across a chair.

After a few minutes she rose, shaking her head.

She crossed to the little wall mirror and looked at herself, as if for the first time.

*

The journey to the little railway station the following morning was accomplished in an edgy silence. Kim seemed anxious and fidgety. Jo distant.

Jo watched Kim get onto the little train and barely acknowledged the latter's raised hand at the carriage window as it departed.

As she made her way back to her car Jo grimaced at the pain behind her eyes and the babbling voices in her head. By the time she had reached her car Jo's eyes had glazed over, her normally mobile and cheerful face a rigid mask.

She moved to the rear of her car and opened the boot. She grabbed the holdall it contained and slammed the boot shut.

Puppet-like, Jo returned to the station, bought a ticket and caught the next train to London.

(End of Chapter 18)


	19. The Rendezvous

Warp War: Chapter 19: _The Rendezvous_

Back in 1973, Lampwick Park didn't have much going for it, apart from the fact that it was the only speck of open green space in the whole of the London Borough of Thamesford.

The old duck pond had silted over. The football pitch was a rutted brown patch, its rusty goalposts yawning at an angle. The children's play area was a motley collection of discoloured, peeling equipment, littered with broken glass and dog mess.

Kim walked past the old cricket pavilion, a wooden structure that was fenced off and plastered with signs reading 'DANGER – UNSAFE STRUCTURE'. Kim remembered seeing a picture of the pavilion at a library exhibition, back in its Victorian heyday, all white and new. As she recalled it would eventually be demolished in 1989 after standing derelict for the best part of two decades, when someone decided to give Lampwick Park a second chance.

Kim continued up the steep little hill and found the bench under the overhanging shade of the massive oak that would still be a feature of the park in 2009. By then the park had been regenerated. Ducks quacking about; laughing children, safe in their rubber-surfaced play area, running and bouncing and swinging; the goalposts of the lush football pitch standing geometrically proud.

Kim sat on the bench and looked at her watch. She was half an hour early. The snow had gone but it was bitingly cold and there were very few people braving the weather this Saturday lunchtime.

Time passed as it always does, sixty seconds a minute, sixty minutes an hour, but to Kim the waiting passed as an anxious lifetime.

Her watch showed that she had been sitting there for nearly fifty minutes when he showed up. Kim had decided he wasn't coming at all and was about to go when she spotted him, strolling down the path that skirted the little copse of trees by the wooden bridge. She saw him pause as he looked up the hill to where she sat. There seemed a momentary indecision before he resumed, walking slowly up the path towards her.

"Miss Grant," he said warily, as she rose to meet him.

Kim controlled her thumping heart but she couldn't do much about the batch of butterflies swirling in her stomach.

He was dressed anonymously in a bottle-green anorak and flared jeans. Against the biting weather he wore a woolly hat, gloves and his neck was muffled with what looked like a black and white football scarf.

Every inch a John Smith.

Oh God, he was waiting for her to say something...

"You off to a match then ?" asked Kim, nodding at his scarf.

"Yeah. Fulham. " He looked pointedly at his wristwatch. "They kick-off in forty-five minutes. I'm sorry I'm late but I haven't got long." He pulled out a sheet of paper after scrabbling in an exterior zipped pocket. "Your letter sounded...well...urgent. Not to mention..."

"A bit bonkers?"

He shrugged. "Do you know me, Jo?" he asked, tentatively.

"My name's not Jo. Just like yours isn't John Smith."

He frowned. "It 's the name on all my documents. If that's not my name what is ?"

Kim shook her head. "I don't know. What can you remember?"

He passed a fluttering hand across his forehead. "Nothing before Muriel. She found me wandering around not far from here. Took me in. Gave me a room for the night. Saved me really. I was so lonely...and afraid. My memory had gone, you see."

"You said you were a postman..."

"Muriel helped get me a job. Temporary at first. But I'm doing OK. Quite enjoy it really. It pays the bills."

"To get a job you need references, a National Insurance number..."

"Got 'em all back home. All in the name of John Smith. That's who I am. " He fumbled in an inside pocket and passed over a small wallet. "Look."

Kim dexterously flipped it open with her right hand. It was a UK Driving Licence in the name of John Smith. No doubt about it. Except...

Kim narrowed her eyes and concentrated furiously. She allowed herself a slight smile as the official document faded to a blank sheet of paper.

Psychic paper.

She handed it back. "I think I can explain that. But...you and Muriel... and Kim ?"

His eyes lit up and his face became animated. "We married five years ago. I have a lovely little girl...still do thanks to what you did last week. Another on the way. We're very happy..."

Kim swallowed hard.

He looked at his watch again. "Look. I'm sorry but if you know me, tell me what you know. Your letter hinted at it. I was in two minds about coming here today..."

"Then why did you?"

"Well, out of gratitude firstly. For saving my daughter."

"And secondly?"

He read from Kim's letter. _"...a duffel coat, with an egg-timer badge, corduroy trousers and hiking boots..."_

"So?"

"That's what I was wearing when Muriel found me."

There was charged silence.

"I do know you. From before the...accident."

"Accident?"

Kim sighed. This was the bit she was dreading. She had it all rehearsed over and over in her mind but, faced with the reality of the man in front of her, the words melted away like ice in the sunshine. She was about to tell him something so impossible that it would sound like the ravings of a nutjob. Worse than that, even if he believed her, would he resent it?

_We married five years ago. We're very happy.._.

Kim opened her mouth to speak.

"I have something for you."

The words were not hers. They came from the shade of the oak tree behind them. They both turned to see a slight figure, carrying a holdall.

"Who-?" he asked.

Kim smiled tightly. "This is Jo Grant. The real Jo Grant."

Jo stepped forward.

"I should have guessed you would find us. What did you do? Bug me? Open my post -?"

Kim broke off. Jo wasn't listening. She seemed slightly out of it.

"I have something for you." Jo repeated. Her voice had a faint slur.

Kim held out her hand towards Jo's holdall.

"Not you. Him."

Jo took two steps towards the man and pointed her right forefinger at him, almost accusingly. He took a step back.

"Hey -"

There was a spark of intense white from Jo's finger that burned itself on Kim's retina as an after-image. She saw it strike the man's forehead, right between the eyes, accompanied by a crackle of static.

He staggered backwards as if punched. Jo slumped senseless onto the bench, like an empty sack.

Gobsmacked, Kim crouched by the pale girl, feeling desperately for a pulse at her neck.

A voice behind her spoke. It was very calm. Assertive, yet gentle at the same time. A voice she knew.

"Don't worry. She'll be fine. Just a mild neural shock."

Kim stood and turned slowly.

He stared at her for a long moment before putting his head back and looking skywards. He breathed out. A long, sighing exhalation. A swarm of tiny flickering lights danced around his head in a cloud before finally extinguishing, one by one.

His head still held back he whispered. "Thank you, Athena...and goodbye."

His head tilted forward again. He took off his woolly hat and it dropped disregarded to the ground. His eyes took in Kim, from tip to toe.

Kim knew she had stopped breathing. Those eyes. _His_ eyes.

His gaze finally fixed on Kim's left sleeve. The emptiness of it. He said just two words. They told her everything she needed to know.

"Oh, Kim..." said the Doctor.

He held his arms open for her.

Screaming, she ran into them.

(End of Chapter 19)


	20. The Mutation of Time

Warp War: Chapter 20 : _The Mutation of Time_

Kim held onto the Doctor for a very long time before he gently disentangled himself.

"I thought you were dead..." she mumbled, weakly.

"I'm sorry, Kim."

"Don't be silly...I'm glad you're not dead..."

"No, I meant that I'm sorry but I have to go somewhere -"

"Oh no you don't! You think I'm going to let you out of my sight after this ?" She grabbed his collar.

He smiled as he gently removed her hand.

"I've got to go back. To the house. To pick up a few things. I know we have a lot to talk about, but I need you to stay here to look after Jo. We can't drag her through the streets like that. I'll be half an hour at most."

Kim looked down uncertainly at Jo, who was snoring loudly on the bench.

"You won't go sneaking off to the football?"

The Doctor looked down at his black and white scarf and smiled. "What would I want to watch twenty-two grown men chasing a bag of wind around a field for? "

It was Kim's turn to smile weakly. "Hold on...what about Mom?"

"She's out for the day. With...her daughter."

Kim nodded. "Half an hour?"

"Half an hour. That's a promise, Kim."

As she watched him jog away down the path Kim turned to Jo Grant, hugging her to protect her from the cold wind. And she worried...

*

Thirty minutes, he had said.

He was back in twenty five. Not only that, he was dressed in his favourite duffel-coat, morphing T-Shirt, which had a view of London Bridge emblazoned across the chest, worn trousers and his sturdy hiking boots.

Every inch the Doctor.

"I kept them in a cupboard in the spare bedroom," he said in answer to Kim's unasked question. He bent down and looked closely at the sleeping figure of Jo Grant. He lifted an eyelid. "She'll be fine after a good eight hour's sleep. We should get her out of the open, though."

"Where to?"

"The Tardis, of course."

Kim jumped up, eyes flicking this way and that. "Where is it?"

"I don't know. But this does." The Doctor pulled out a device from his coat pocket. It looked like a small compass and Kim could see the needle questing this way and that before fixing into position. Some luminous numbers appeared around the edge.

"Tardis Homer, "explained the Doctor. "Hmm, as I'd hoped, not far. About 800 yards thataway." He pointed down the hill and they both gazed down on the old, derelict cricket pavillion, the only building in sight. He pocketed the device and reached for Jo Grant, lifting her easily into his arms like a sleeping child. "Come on, Kim. Can you bring her holdall ? Right. Let's go."

*

The so-called security fence around the pavillion was a rusted mass and gapped in several places.

They stood at the padlocked door to the old building. The Doctor stood Jo up carefully, supporting her with one hand and aiming his trusty sonic probe with the other.

"I've waited ages to do this, " he murmured. The probe glowed blue and the padlock sprang apart with a little flash. "Very satisfying. Now, can you just support her for a moment, Kim while I get the door open?"

Kim managed to support Jo as the Doctor dragged away the remains of the padlock and pushed open the door.

Between them they dragged Jo into the damp, dank darkness. The Doctor twisted the end of the sonic probe and flashed a wide-angled torch beam around the room. Rats scuttled away, eyes glowing. In the rafters pigeons panicked momentarily at the intrusion The room was half full of rubble and its ceiling had partially collapsed. It all smelled of rotting wood. A second room, through a door-less frame at the rear of the building, was in much the same condition, except for the presence of a familiar square blue shape standing in one corner.

"Voila!" exclaimed the Doctor, as if he had pulled a rabbit from a hat.

The Tardis was covered with five years worth of dust, cobwebs and bird droppings. To Kim it was the most beautiful sight imaginable.

The Doctor snapped his fingers at the doors but nothing happened. "We'll have to do it the old fashioned way." He pulled out a key and inserted it in the lock. The door swung reluctantly inwards, helped in no small measure by a heave of the Doctor's shoulder.

Beyond was a foreboding blackness. With the Doctor shining his makeshift torch ahead of them, they entered, manhandling the snoring Jo Grant with them as they went.

*

Cold.

Kim's erstwhile nemesis was back. Ever since the collision with Mik Dekka's ship it had dogged her; from the ice cave that was so nearly her tomb, to the streets of her Thamesford childhood. And it had cost her a hand, of course.

Now cold was back, inside the Tardis.

The control room was a cavernous dead space, the only light being the Doctor's flashing beam. The normally hovering central control torus lay in the centre of the room like a beached whale. The silence was almost tangible and Kim shivered, her breath condensing.

She saw the Doctor gently lie Jo on one of the couches that littered the outer edges of the room. Holding the illuminating probe in his teeth he quickly removed his coat and enveloped her in it. She looked snug, serene and oblivious. Kim envied her.

The Doctor, seemingly immune to the temperature in his T-shirt, made his way over to the grounded control torus and flashed the probe over it.

"Aha! Kim, can you bring the holdall over please." His voice echoed around the room, as if from a great distance.

Kim had almost forgotten about Jo's holdall that was slung over her shoulder. She crossed carefully to the centre of the room and passed it to the Doctor. As she did so she noticed a gash on the top of the control torus that looked almost like a wound. It was rectangular, not very big but she could see exposed wiring through it.

The Doctor unzipped the holdall and pulled out a familiar object. An object that Kim had found on a little ice planet thousands of years into the future, melting its way into the snow. The object that had powered her desperate distress call through time.

"Power Diffuser," said the Doctor. He placed it on the gap and gently eased it into position.

It was a perfect fit.

"Now we'll see." He pressed a few buttons on the control unit and threw a lever.

At first nothing happened. Then Kim heard a distant noise, almost like a neighbour using a vacuum cleaner. It began to grow in volume. Kim jumped as first one overhead panel then another flickered into life, filling the control room with a weedy, diffuse light. The temperature began to rise, faintly at first but noticeably. More and more overhead panels lit up.

A smiling Doctor cast his eyes over his controls. "Not bad," he murmured."We'll just give it a few minutes for the power levels to settle..."

"Doctor."

"Hmm?"

"You said we had a lot to talk about..."

He faced her and nodded.

"It's not a dream is it? I'm not going to wake up and find everything back to normal?"

He shook his head.

"It's not an illusion or any of that parallel world stuff?"

"No."

"It's reality then."

"For now."

"I'm not in the mood for guessing games, "said Kim, suddenly angry.

"I don't know the answers, Kim."

"THEN TELL ME WHAT YOU DO KNOW!" Her voice rolled around the room.

He sighed. "Something has mutated time. Changed what should be. There are many paths in time. At a road junction you can turn left or right. Go straight on or turn back. The options you ignore usually vanish instantly. Very rarely one sometimes gains an existence of its own. Comes back to swamp the true reality..."

"You're talking in riddles again." Kim took a moment to draw breath. "Just tell me where you've been all this time!"

"You remember the collision? With that ship in warp space. Well, it was, fortunately, not a full Time Ram or we wouldn't be standing here talking about it. More of a glancing blow. A moment when the molecules of the Tardis and Dekka's ship mingled. It stole a few things..."

"Me for one," said Kim, with feeling.

"Quite. It also took the Power Diffuser from the console."

"What else?"

"Me."

"What do you mean, you?"

"It stole my memories, my essence for want of a better word. Leaving my body behind."

"Where the hell...?"

"In Dekka's bio-chip."

"Oh my God! Why didn't you say something?"

"The chip was inert due to the crash. I had no channel of communication. Except...."

"Except what ?"

"The software in the chip was still intact. Just about. Dekka called her 'Athena' and she looked after him whilst he was on the mission. We had some right old arguments before she capitulated. She loved him, you see. He had customised her that way."

Kim was almost speechless. The Doctor had been there all the time...!

"I don't blame Athena resisting as long as she did. My plan meant her suicide."

"What plan?"

The Doctor looked surprised. "The plan to jump into the nearest human carrier and use them as a conduit to get back to this old body, of course." He said it as if jumping minds was an everyday activity, like washing your hair.

"So what about 'that old body' ? Why 1968?"

"The Tardis had tried to complete its journey. Do you remember where we were going, before the collision?"

Kim cast her swirling mind back with difficulty. "Something about a pop concert..."

The Doctor nodded enthusiastically. As if on cue the unstable molecules on his T-shirt flowed. 'CREAM ON TOUR '68. THE FINAL GIG.'

He looked down and nodded sagely. "Their final performance at the Royal Albert Hall, London.1968. I'm quite partial to a bit of Psychedelic Rock. Although the Tardis was failing it found this building. In 1968. A darned good effort in the circumstances. "

"And you had no memory?"

The Doctor nodded. "I think after that, things happened much as he told you. 'John Smith' I mean. Regarding your mother and I. I have no real memory of that in any detail. That particular John Smith has gone."

"You know you're my bloody father and I have a brother or sister on the way! Do I call you Dad?"

"I know this is difficult, Kim."

"Difficult!"

Their conversation came to an abrupt end as the grounded control unit on which they were leaning suddenly shifted. Displays lit up and the torus hummed with power as it rose gently to assume its normal hovering position.

The Doctor tapped at a few gauges, examined a readout and scanned the control room with his eyes. The light was dim but the heating was tolerable.

"We've only got about 20% power," he said. "I think that's the best we can hope for at the moment. Still, it's enough."

"Enough for what?"

"To drop off Jo at UNIT HQ, first of all. We don't want her waking up here with a head full of questions. Then we can go and top up the engines."

Kim went over and gazed down at the gentle, elfin-faced girl asleep on the couch.

"She kept me sane, you know. Helped me through this..." She waved the knotted left sleeve of her jacket at him.

"Does it hurt, Kim?"

She sighed. "Throbs a bit sometimes. I even get a tingling in my fingers as if they are still there."

"Something similar happened to me once. I had those same feelings but in my case it was only for a few moments. Not a -"

"Lifetime?" Kim snapped, bitterly.

He looked at her seriously. "Never say never, Kim."

She looked at him steadily. For all she knew there were thousands of places in the Universe where you could get a new hand. Cloned from a cell in an afternoon. Pop in just like a hairdressing appointment and Bob's your uncle, all fixed. But she knew he had other things on his mind. Big things. She could see them virtually written on his face.

Kim also knew that she would never, ever, ask it of him.

"Ready to go?"

"Doctor..."

"Yes?"

"My mom...you did love her, didn't you?"

The Doctor looked at Kim for a long time. "I hope so, Kim. I hope so."

(End of Chapter 20)


	21. The Enforcer

Warp War: Chapter 21: _The Enforcer_

She knew that something was moving against her but it wasn't until she got the whispered warning that Battonica realised that she had to act before it was too late.

She was feeding at the communal Nutrition Pool when she spotted a com-cube floating at the entrance to her berth, glowing faintly green. She looked around. None of her immediate neighbours seemed to have spotted it. Battoniac was curious. Quick as a flash her tongue flicked out and she swallowed the cube as unobtrusively as she could. She heard the voice whisper in her brain. "Beware, Dr Battonica. You are being watched closely ."

That was all it said

Back in her chamber Battonica thought hard, then opened a secure communication channel to her contact in the warp factory. He owed her his life several times over and it was time to call in the favour.

She explained to him carefully what she needed to divest the debt. There was a long pause at the end of the line. "You want WHAT?" was the ultimate, incredulous response. But it was an honour debt and he eventually agreed.

Over a period of time Battonica kept her head down, working at her practice during the Light-time, trying to cure the sick, comfort the insane and ease the passage of the dying, just like any physician anywhere.

In the Dark-time she started to construct the Cabinet, taking delivery of goods from a variety of sources for the sake of security. It wasn't her specialty, engineering, but she did her best and also had help from a few unsuspecting friends who thought she was merely building her own cold-box.

Then, after what seemed an age, her contact from the warp factory called at Battonica's chambers at a late hour and delivered the final component in a tiny grey metal box.

She nodded her head as she took the box in her foreclaw. "Your debt is repaid." she said.

"You must be mad, "he said, before scuttling fearfully away.

At the Nutrient Pool the following cycle she had a second warning. There was another com-cube. Battonica glanced nervously around before striking at it with her tongue and swallowing. She heard the same voice as before, in her brain. "Whatever it is you are doing, do it quickly. Your arrest warrant is being drawn up."

After her practice closed she hurried back to her chamber. There was no time for fancy simulations or tests. She was going to have to do it now.

After locking and barring the external doors Battonica slipped a blank data-disc into the recording slot. She spoke quickly into the microphone. As she did so she could hear a faint clattering of claws in the passage outside.

They were coming for her.

She downloaded her Book onto the disc, which seemed to take forever. Then she punched in some coordinates which were downloaded in an instant.

There was a single, heavy blow on the doors. "In the name of the Triumvirate, Open!"

Battonica ignored the command, hoping that the locked doors would give her the momentary grace she needed.

She fed in another set of coordinates, this time to the Cabinet irself. These were the ones provided by Captain Jack. The military amongst her people would give their hind legs for this information. After she finished she swallowed the parchment containing those vital numbers.

A terrific blow bent her door inwards. It was now or never.

Battonica threw the power switch and an intense beam of blue light, Warp energy, flooded the Cabinet on the other side of her chamber. Its door slid open to reveal the intensity of the naked Warp stream. She snatched up the completed data-disc just as her external chamber-door burst asunder.

Four members of the dreaded security cadre leaped into the room. They were led by Enforcer Maquidd himself. The Triumvirate's hatchet man.

"Make no sudden movements, Dr Battonica, " hissed Maquidd, dangerously. "I have your arrest warrant here. On pain of death."

Battonica sighed and sulked, a pretense of defeat. Suddenly she whipped around and skimmed the data-disc across the room. It travelled like a bullet at the glowing cabinet. It entered the crackling blue warp stream and vanished.

There was a moment's stunned hesitation then one of Maquidd's troops jumped at Battonica. She responded with a blow from her tail that crushed her attacker's carapace. As he rolled massively away Maquidd, seeing an opening, slipped forward with a partial de-phasing blur and neatly decapitated Battonica with a snip of his augmented massive foreclaw.

Thus it was that Battonica was already mercifully dead when the three remaining attackers fell on her and dismembered her in a frenzy of slashing teeth and claws.

When it was all over Maquidd glanced briefly at his fallen comrade and grunted. He was dead. He then went over to the now silent Cabinet and sniffed at it.

"What is it, Enforcer?" asked one of the squad, at his side, his maw still rancid with Battonica's blood.

"Get a scientific team here. Urgently. If I didn't know better I could swear I can smell Warp energy." He looked around the chamber at the blood and gore that was all that was left of Battonica. "What were you up to, my lovely?" he murmured. Then, to the third squad member. "Get a message to the Triumvirate. Priority channel. Tell them what we found here. And tell them that the traitorous bitch is dead now."

*

In the Mind-Hive The Triumvirate digested the report of Maquidd's raid on the chamber of Battonica and the subsequent forensic examination of the place, in stupefied silence. Then the Magsister exploded in a paroxysm of rage. It went on for a very long time. The other two had never seen him in this state. Such was his anger that his third and fourth eyes both bled at the height of his rant.

At long last he gained some sort of control. "There will be a full investigation." His voice was a croaking hiss.

"Indeed, Magister."

"Of course, Magister."

"For that bitch to obtain Warp energy...it is beyond belief! She must have confederates. Still at large. They must be found and destroyed as enemies of the state. Spies for Humankind."

The others chorused their agreement.

"But first we must accelerate the deployment of the Residue."

The Magister ascended to his perch abruptly, without requesting the formality of agreement.

As the third and most junior of the Triumvirate reached his own perch he pondered. They would find him in the end, of course. Trace his misdirection of the accounting reports from the warp factory. His warnings to Battonica.

He gave the equivalent of a sigh. Many decca-cycles ago he and Battonica had been spawn-partners. It had been a defining, joyous moment in his life. She had been an intellectual stimulation to him and he had never forgotten her.

By some freak of fortune he had been elected to the Triumvirate but he had still placed his trust in Battonica. He hoped that whatever she had done with the stolen Warp technology, it had been worth all this.

*

The data disc flew out of the Schism and vanished with a burst of blue fire into Warp space. It reappeared instantaneously in the atmosphere of the little blue-green planet far across the galactic plane. It was undetected by humanity. That was the benefit of Captain Jack's coordinates. It allowed direct access to the Earth.

The little disc arched down on the final leg of its incredible journey – towards the place Captain Jack had named.

It had been known to Battonica as KarDyff.

(End of Chapter 21)


	22. Death of a Princess

Warp War: Chapter 22: _Death of a Princess_

Kim looked at the shadowy image on the Tardis' scanner screen.

The UNIT laboratory. It looked deserted.

The Doctor seemed pleased. "Not bad," he said. "Hardly used any power for such a short hop. Would you mind taking a quick look to double-check, Kim? I'll get Jo and we can leave her here."

"She will be OK, won't she?" asked Kim anxiously as the exterior door unfolded inwards.

"Of course. A few hours sleep in the lab and she'll be as right as rain in the morning. She won't remember any of this." He moved over to the recumbent figure on the couch.

Kim looked out into the darkened lab. She gave a start when she saw another police box standing in the opposite corner of the room, although the Doctor had warned her to expect it.

She stepped out. A typical lab workbench stood in the centre of the room littered with a jumble of scientific paraphernalia. There was nobody in the room, the only light coming through the glass of the internal doors and a dim shaft of moonlight from outside. A clock on the wall showed it was nearly midnight.

"The coast's clear!" hissed Kim, back through the police box door.

"OK."

As she looked around the room to find a comfortable chair for Jo, Kim spotted a photo frame standing on the work surface, next to a small vase of flowers. Curious, she went over for a better look.

Jo Grant smiled out at her from the frame. A frame bordered in black ribbon. Next to it was an open leather book with several handwritten entries_. RIP...Tragic Loss...Sadly Missed..._

Kim held up the book to catch the light. _'In Memorium'_ said the cover, in gilt lettering.

She dropped the book like a hot potato.

"I'm afraid she's dead, my dear."

Kim spun to the open door where Jo's Doctor stood, a silhouette dressed in black velvet. As he stepped forward into the shaft of moonlight she could see an immense sadness on his face, which seemed to have aged twenty years.

Kim recovered herself remarkably quickly. "You're wrong," she said, shaking her head. "She's in there. We're bringing her back..."

The Doctor looked sadly at the second police box standing in the diagonally opposite corner from his own. "I suspected as much," he whispered. "When I saw that Tardis technology..._future_ Tardis technology."

There was a noise at the open door of the police box.

"Here's Jo now..." Kim's voice faltered. Her Doctor stood in the doorway. He was looking down at his empty arms as if he'd just dropped a winning Superbowl pass.

"She just vanished," he whispered. "Faded away..."

The two Doctors stared at each other across the room.

"He says she's dead!" blurted out Kim.

"What happened?" demanded her Doctor.

"I took Jo on a Tardis test flight. She was dressed up for a night on the town with Mike Yates. I said I would have her back in good time..."

"Peladon!"

"That's right. She looked like a princess. That's what they took her for. But she fell from a ledge on the Citadel. Thousands of feet. Those ridiculous high-heels...They buried her at the foot of the mountain, under a cairn, as is the Pel tradition for royalty. Heaven knows how I got back here. The Tardis brought me home."

"That can't be right -" protested Kim, but her Doctor put his hand on her arm to quieten her.

"There is something very wrong with time," he said quietly. "A major mutation."

The other looked up quickly. "Can you fix it?"

"I don't know."

The man in black velvet walked across the room, to the second Tardis. He looked carefully at his opposite number before resting his hand on the outer shell of the police box. "You're running on very low power."

"Twenty per cent. We were just on our way to top her up. Come with us. I don't know what to do, but the two of us together -"

The older man shook his head, somewhat sadly. "You know how dangerous that would be. I'm afraid you're in the hot seat on your own. I'll wait here. For Jo. Good luck."

The man in the duffel-coat sighed heavily. He turned on his heel. "Come on, Kim." he said, as he vanished into his ship.

As Kim went to follow she was restrained by a velvet-clad arm. In his hand was a small container, about the size and shape of a pack of playing cards. "Take this, my dear. I have a feeling it may be useful. He would never accept it from me."

Kim was about to ask what it was when an insistent voice called to her. "Kim!"

She smiled grimley and pocketed the packet. "We'll do our best. If anybody can sort out this mess he...you...can."

Kim stepped through the police box doors which closed behind her.

The Doctor watched as it dematerialised with its usual raucous fanfare.

Then he crossed the empty room and sat at the workbench, staring emptily at the photograph of Jo Grant.

And he waited...

(End of Chapter 22)


	23. Incoming

Warp War: Chapter 23: _Incoming_

"_C_ardiff!" exclaimed Kim.

Preoccupied with the death of Jo Grant, she thought she had misheard when the Doctor had announced their destination.

"That's right. It's in Wales -"

"I know where Cardiff is," interrupted Kim. "But...well...Cardiff?"

"What's wrong with it?"

"Nothing at all. But when you said we needed to top up the engines I had visions of some interstellar service station out beyond Alpha Centauri or something. What's with Cardiff? Is it tuppence a litre cheaper there or something?"

The Doctor grinned mirthlessly. "Cardiff had a fault running through it. A kind of rift in time. I fixed it ages ago but there is a scar. Invisible and harmless but it leaks energy that I can use to top up the Tardis. I've done it a few times before. No problem. Ah, here we go."

The descending whine of the Tardis engines heralded their approach and the familiar bump underfoot confirmed their arrival.

From the centre of the control torus the Doctor examined his controls and scanned the walls with their shifting geometric patterns. "Spot on," he announced. "Now if we open up the tanks..." He twisted a control and examined a readout."That's that. We're filling up nicely."

He frowned as he saw Kim's face. "Is there something the matter, Kim?"

She took a deep breath. "I hope you don't mind me saying this -"

"Go on."

"Well, you seemed very fond of Jo. Back there at the UNIT HQ. The earlier you, I mean."

"And?"

"Well, you just seem a bit blasé about it all. Her dying I mean."

The Doctor pursed his lips. "I'm not blasé about it, Kim. But it gives me some grounds for optimism."

"Eh?"

"You see, _that's not how I remember things_. Jo Grant and I returned from Peladon safe and sound. Jo even made her date with Mike Yates. Eventually she married an eco-scientist, Cliff Jones, and went off on an expedition with him up the Amazon. She lived happily ever after, Kim. That's why maybe, just maybe, there's a little light at the end of the tunnel."

"I'm sorry," said Kim. "I didn't mean to imply -"

He held up his hand, dismissing any imagined offence. "It's going to take about 8 – 10 hours to complete refuelling. It's the middle of the night out there. Less curious pedestrians to worry about. I've got a bit of maintenance to do. What about you ?"

Kim yawned loudly. "In the following order; a bacon and egg sandwich; a cup of coffee and a good eight hours sleep."

*

After Kim had showered (another experience easier with two hands) she had expected to toss and turn fitfully in her bed. In fact as soon as her head touched the pillow she went out like a light and slept dreamlessly for the desired eight hours (according to her watch).

She awoke abruptly during an air-raid, or so it seemed. Somewhere a siren was wailing and klaxons sounded intermittently. She didn't like the sound of that. She threw on a robe over her pyjamas, snatched up her glasses and ran down the connecting corridor into the control room where all hell seemed to have broken loose.

The lights were flashing and alarms battered her ears. The Doctor cut a frantic figure in the centre of the control torus, pulling at levers and controls like a demented concert pianist.

"What's wrong ?" screamed Kim, not through fear, but just to make herself heard.

He didn't look up. "Something is targeting us! It's tracking back through time! It must have been embedded here in the rift. Oh, it's clever! Devilishly clever. It's locked on to the Tardis' Huon energy."

"Can't you take off?"

A tremendous clang echoed around the room, almost cathedral-like in its intensity.

"Too late!" shouted the Doctor. "Cloister-bell alarm! Hold on for impact, Kim ! It's phasing through our defenses!"

The room was a shuddering cacophony of noise now. Kim held onto the nearest couch as the vibration made her eyes rattle in their sockets.

It reached a crescendo then...

Silence.

The Doctor rose cautiously from the centre of the torus, his eyes working this way and that. Likewise, Kim warily got off the couch, relieved, as well as confused, by the anti-climax.

They both flinched as something tinkled on the floor between them. It rolled lazily towards Kim before running out of energy and coming to rest between her feet.

It looked like a CD, being circular, silver and shiny. Kim picked it up and held it for the Doctor to see.

It was Battonica's data-disc.

(End of Chapter 23)


	24. The Book of Names

Warp War 24:_ The Book of Names_

"It looks like a CD," said Kim, turning the disc over.

"It is, sort of," said the Doctor, taking it off her. "It's a data storage device, certainly. Someone went to an awful lot of trouble to get it to us."

"Can you play it ?"

"Is the Holy Cardinal of the Magii Confederation a Grade A Spellmaster?"

While Kim was trying to figure that one out, the Doctor operated a control on the torus and a little lid sprang up. He inserted the disc, closed the lid and looked across at the free-standing flat-screen scanner. Kim followed his gaze.

For a long time the screen fizzed and hissed with static.

"Is it scratched?" asked Kim, disappointed.

"There may have been some slight damage on the way to us but there appears to be a problem with the telepathic circuits. It's proving difficult to translate...hold on. Right, here it is."

The screen cleared. It showed an eye. An eye that filled the whole scanner. Nothing else. It seemed to stare balefully at them. It was the eye of some huge lizard, yet at the same time it had an elephantine sadness.

"My name is Battonica." The voice was clipped and guttural, yet feminine. "I am of the species known to you as 'The Screamers'. Among my own people I am a biologist, a physician. I am also a member of a small group opposed to the war. It is for this reason that I am sending you this message, Doctor."

Kim and the Doctor looked at each other. Their eyebrows nearly crawled off their respective foreheads.

The message continued.

"You were described to me by a mutual friend as a man who may be able to help, if anyone can." The giant eye on the screen seemed to glance off to the left before centering again. "I have very little time. They are coming for me. You should know that this is a war of vengeance. We were not always like this, so... grotesque. Our legends tell us that there came a great light, out of nowhere, that changed us all forever. We call it the Meldlight. For generations our scientists investigated the Meldlight. Eventually the source was traced. Humanity is the source of our suffering."

You could hear a pin drop in the Tardis control room as Battonica spoke.

"There were those of us who favoured communication with Humankind. To talk it through. But the Military here staged a coup. Warp weapons were constructed and the War of Vengeance began. But now we have developed a new weapon. It is shrouded in secrecy but I know that it is called 'The Residue.' If it is deployed then humanity will lose the war. Billions of lives will be lost. And we will never, ever, talk to each other."

The eye slid left again. "They are here. I must go. I am uploading a set of spatio-temporal coordinates that might help against the Residue. I am also sending you a copy...my copy...of our holiest scripture. Please, Doctor, do what you can. You are our last best hope."

The image of the eye snapped off suddenly, leaving the scanner blank.

"Mutual friend?" murmured the Doctor.

"Whew, talk about cryptic!" exclaimed Kim.

The Doctor hushed her. "There's something else coming through."

The screen showed a horizontal bar graphic that loaded with excruciating slowness. After what seemed an age the bar filled and there was a ping. The screen was covered with dense and unrecognisable symbols. It scrolled through pages and pages of them.

The Doctor jumped over to his controls, examining readouts and adjusting switches. " Like before, the telepathic circuits are having some trouble translating -" He stood upright. "It's a book, Kim. Some sort of book. Here it comes."

The screen pinged again and all the dense alien text vanished, to be replaced by four words:

_The Book of Names _

The Doctor touched a switch and the scanner descended to eye-level. Kim could see a touch-screen control at the bottom of the screen, with arrows.

"There are 254 pages according to the Translation Matrix," said the Doctor walking over to the scanner. "Now, let's have a look at page one."

He touched the screen and the title vanished to be replaced by a screen full of dense text. Although it was recognisably Engish, it made no sense at all.

_Aarrexu-Ablaconian-Abserviant-Accolox-Admen- Afkannaprime- Agornicopia-Agiterax-Aghorfolexian-Ahex-Ahinco-Ailfarmers-Ajaxitonian-Akkraalid-Aklaminesta-Alzarian-Appomatrixial..._

The Doctor glanced at Kim and stabbed at the touch controls.

Another page:

_...Damstortex-Dazaksteers-Ddodoxian-Demonicals-Destarine-Dezatrydon..._

And another;

_...Pennimondian-Peszartoid-Petterfoals-Pequinofthenight-Pezzachnid-Pfilliomond..._

And so on. The book was full of it.

"Kim. You're a librarian. Books are you business. What do you make of this?"

"It's gibberish," she said.

He sighed. "What about the structure?"

"Well...there's no punctuation at all."

"It's all one word." said the Doctor.

Kim shrugged. "But there is that odd capitalization...it seems to be almost alphabetical in nature."

The Doctor touched the screen, returning to page one. He frowned at it.

_...Akkraalid-Aklaminesta-Alzarian-Appomatrixial..._

He reached up and touched the screen again, isolating a single set of characters:

_...Alzarian..._

"Now there's a coincidence," he breathed. "Or is it ? "

He jabbed at the touch controls, flipping ahead quickly.

_..Tarraxion-Tazun-Teppoiloflight-Terradonian-Texiform..._

He isolated another word:

_...Terradonian..._

"Oh my!" exclaimed the Doctor. He turned staring eyes on Kim. "It might be a coincidence..." He jabbed at the screen again, isolating yet another word;

_...Tharil..._

"That's it! Undeniable_." _He shook his head, as if to dislodge a rogue, unwelcome thought.

"What?"

"It's Exo-space Kim. I recognise those names. They are races of E-space!"

"E-space?"

"A pocket universe attached to ours. Not that much different. Smaller, with slightly different natural laws. Negative coordinates compared to us, which explains the problem the telepathic circuits had translating. I travelled there for a while. That's how I recognise those names. I think those are the race names for all the civilizations of E-space. In one book."

"But why all one word?"

The Doctor passed a trembling hand over his chin.

"You heard Battonica. Something terrible came and changed them all forever. Meldlight she called it. I've had an idea...it's horrible."

He operated another control on the floating torus. "I'm going to try for an updated translation of their own race name..."

The book vanished on the screen to be replaced by:

_The Fusion of The Meldkind  
__Screaming in their Eternal Agony_

"'Fusion of the Meldkind'. Imagine it , Kim" His voice was a whisper. "What if something came to Earth and rolled up all life into a giant ball of clay. Human life, animal life, birds, insects, fish, everything. And then dished it out again. Haphazard, randomly. Bits from here, bits from there..."

Kim's hand went up to her mouth. "That's sick."

"I think that perhaps something like that happened to E-space. According to them something caused by humanity. Something that did the same_ to their whole universe.._."

"It sounds -"

"Incredible? Far-fetched? The Book of Names...their holiest scripture. A reminder of how they used to be. I hope I'm wrong."

"If you're right, no wonder they're pissed off. What about this weapon she was talking about."

"The coordinates she sent have been uploaded from the disc. The course is laid in."

"We're going to go and have a look are we?"

The Doctor smiled tightly and threw a lever. "Of course."

(End of Chapter 24)


	25. The Residue

Warp War: Chapter 25 _The Residue _

Looking at it from this angle, Kim could clearly see why they called it The Nebula of The Lion Rampant. It billowed in its dusty, inky smoke and, with a bit of imagination, you could make out the King of the Beasts, standing proud on its hind legs, reaching for the stars.

The coordinates from the data-disc had brought them here, back to the 52nd century.

"I've tweaked the coordinates so we're standing off a bit, hovering outside the nebula itself," said the Doctor, as they looked up at the scanner. "We don't want to go barging into trouble. Tell me, Kim, what did Dekka have to say about the Nebula of The Lion Rampant?"

Kim tried to remember, thinking back to the conversations she had with Dekka back in the ice-cave, a lifetime ago.

"Hmm..he said that they thought the Screamer missiles originated from inside it. All attempts at communication had been failures. Some pilots tried to penetrate it but were shot down. That's right...he said that there was some kind of automated defence system around the edges."

"It's interesting Kim. I know this region fairly well and I'd never heard of the Nebula of the Lion Rampant before now. Furthermore, there is nothing in the Tardis data-banks about it either."

"Is that significant?"

He shrugged. "Might be. Still we're not going to learn anything sitting out here. Let's take a look inside."

"What about the defences?"

The Tardis' engines thundered.

"We'll be safe in here."

*

To Kim the thing on the scanner, the thing sitting at the centre of the nebula, reminded her of nothing so much as a plughole. Yes, that was it. A bath plughole with swirling water draining away. It turned slowly in place and its edges seemed to churn up the space around it.

"Is it a black hole?" asked Kim, brightly.

The Doctor pursed his lips and shook his head. "Nice guess, but no. It's a Charged Vacuum Emboitement. CVE for short. It's a doorway to E-Space and vice versa. A bit like the rift I closed in Cardiff but much more massive and unstable."

"Where did it come from?"

"Thats a good question. It's not supposed to be here." The Doctor scanned his controls, clearly puzzled.

"Hold on, Doctor. There's something coming through!"

It was a dot at the centre of the whirlpool at first. Faint but growing larger. They watched in silence as it expanded to almost fill the CVE. Then it started to extrude through the gap, bulging out into space. A giant blister against the stars, struggling to break free.

Kim was reminded of the birth of a baby. Crowning, they called it. She had a horrible vision of eyes, nose and a mouth...

Then, with a sudden thrust it was through, a huge sphere hovering in place above the CVE.

It was a washed out fleshy-brown, with streaks of other colours veining its surface. There seemed to be some surface texture and Kim was reminded of a ball of rubber bands that she had constructed over many years back at Thamesford library for stress-relief.

The Doctor looked at his controls, flinched and looked again.

"What is the biggest planet in your solar system, Kim?"

She was taken by surprise for a moment. "Err...Jupiter isn't it?"

The Doctor nodded. "That thing is reading five times the size and mass of Jupiter."

Kim whistled.

"Not only that, it's reading as wholly organic."

"Organic! What the hell is it?"

The Doctor's voice descended to a bare whisper. "Kim, define the word 'residue' for me."

"Well..err...that which is left behind after some kind of process."

"Hmm. That sounds about right. That which is left behind..." he echoed in a very quiet voice, the one which usually unnerved Kim the most. "I don't think this is going to be very pleasant, Kim. But we need to know." He turned a control, looking anxiously up at the scanner.

The picture flickered and magnified, zooming in on the strange sphere.

There was clear surface structure, rills, rivers, mountains. The sphere seemed to rush at them as the picture magnified. Until...

Kim had always maintained an agnostic approach to religion. An open-minded neutrality. But she knew Hell when she saw it, and she was looking into Hell right now.

It was a plain of mottled flesh. It writhed and rippled and, in places, burst into open pustules. Kim saw rivers of coppery red blood, swimming with chunks of blubbery fat, running through scab-encrusted valleys. A chalky white bone cliff, down which poured a waterfall of mucus slime. Lakes of steaming pus. A matting of fibre that looked like a carpet of hair, probably thousands of miles across. When she saw forests of entrails she turned away, closing her eyes. She felt bile rising in her throat.

They had only looked at a fraction of the nightmare.

_Five times the size of Jupiter._

"Sorry," said the Doctor. The scanner resumed its normal magnification. Even he looked aghast.

Kim didn't ask him what it was. She suspected the answer but couldn't articulate it. She left that to him.

"The Residue, " he whispered. " 'That which remains'. My theory about E-space. Remember? Whatever happened to affect all the inhabitants. To meld them. It had ...stuff...left over. Organic material that didn't fit the new order. Body parts, organs." He indicated the hovering sphere on the scanner. " The science is fantastic. But it's an abomination. Pure and simple."

"She called it a weapon...in the message." Kim grabbed at the Doctor's arm. "Hold on, it's moving!"

The sphere had drifted slightly away from the whirlpool of the CVE below it. The scanner tried to centre it but it kept drifting off. Was it Kim's imagination or was it getting smaller?

"It's moving away from us!" The Doctor started fiddling frantically with his controls.

Kim squinted at the sphere. It seemed to be fuzzy around the edges, like a blurred photograph.

"It's going into Warp!" yelled the Doctor, horror in his voice.

The Residue stretched, momentarily resembling a rancid, bloated sausage. Then it zipped out of view.

"We're on its track!" shouted the Doctor, as the Tardis' engines screamed in protest. "Hang on Kim!"

The control room rattled and rolled as the Tardis tried to hang on to the coat-tails of the Residue. Around the Doctor a holographic canopy of stars popped up, shrouding the Doctor inside the central torus. Kim could make out a flashing dotted line in amongst the starfield.

The canopy snapped off, leaving an ashen-faced Doctor staring at his companion.

"It is a weapon," he said. "They've fired it at Earth!"

*

It came out of nowhere, without warning, barrelling in from beyond the orbit of Mars. Considering it had been fired from over 11,000 Light Years away it was as accurate as could be expected.

All over the solar system alarms howled. But when defence specialists looked at the nature of the intruder they knew their time had come. They had no answer to this.

It was upon Mars in an instant, passing within 100,000 miles. It kissed the terraformed Martian atmosphere with its mind-blowing gravitational field. Nearly twenty million human colonists were sucked out into space along with their cities and bases. They never knew what killed them. Mars itself wobbled like a trick ball. It fell out of orbit, pushed away by the giant intruder, starting a trek of generations towards the outer wastes of the solar system.

Earth's defences were mobilised. It was a mere gesture. Atomic cannons fired, neutrino missiles were launched; some brave souls even crashed their interceptors onto the nightmare surface of the Residue, overcome by the sheer horror of it. It was like spitting into a hurricane.

The Moon was next. The Residue merely passed by and the Moon disintegrated into fine dust. Another two million souls lost, along with their bases.

Then the prize. Earth. The seat of the Human Empire.

It stretched towards the Residue, attracted like a moth to a candle. Its oceans boiled off into space and its mantle shredded. By now all of its inhabitants, thirty-four billion of them, were mercifully dead. Overcome by enormous gravitation, the Earth exploded into spinning balls of rock, rushing outwards in all directions. Messengers of doom. A millisecond later the Residue, its mission complete, exploded with cataclysmic force, its constituent organic material sizzling out into space, mingling with the remnants of the dead Earth.

Such was the power of the explosion that the Sun wobbled on its axis like a giant, struck bell. It would continue to do so for untold millenia. Mercury fell into it, unable to resist the shockwave and Venus spun like a top, shedding its clouds and heating up like a blowtorch.

Out near the Asteroid belt the Tardis hovered. Even there it was buffeted by the shockwaves. The Doctor and Kim stood watching the tragedy unfold on the scanner screen in stupefied silence.

It was the Doctor who eventually broke it. He turned to Kim.

"The Warp War is over," he said. "And the Screamers have won."

(End of Chapter 25)


	26. Two Drops of Blood

Warp War Chapter 26: _Two Drops of Blood_

"Taranium!"

The word was spat out by the Doctor as an incredulous curse."Oh the stupid, stupid children..." He turned to Kim. "I've analyzed the Warp signature of that thing. They used pure Taranium as part of the drive."

Kim tried not to appear impolite. She had just witnessed the end of her world, after all. She wasn't in the mood for technobabble. "So?"

"Taranium is a very rare substance in this universe, Kim. But in E-space? Who knows?"

"What's so important about Taranium?"

"It's naturally time-sensitive. Back in 4000AD the Daleks used an Emm of it to power their Time Destructor. It didn't work, fortunately. But it looks like the Screamers may have it in abundance."

Kim was beginning to lose patience. "And?"

"I think it's the answer to the time mutation, Kim. If they're using Taranium to power their Warp Missiles then the effect on the flow of time in this universe could be catastrophic. According to the readings, the background Taranium level is up a millionfold compared to normal."

"But we're in the fifty-second century," objected Kim. "How could this stuff affect us back in the twentieth?"

The Doctor took a deep breath. "The Time Ram, " he whispered. "When the Tardis hit Dekka's ship and rebounded back to 1968 it carved out a time-corridor. The Taranium seeped through like water down a drain."

"Oh God."

"That's the only explanation I can think of that fits. Time was infected back in 1968 by the Taranium leak, with the results we have experienced."

Kim glanced at her empty left sleeve and thought of her mother. "Look. You keep going on about this mutated time thing. Who's to say what's right or wrong? It's just random isn't it?"

The Doctor leaned back on the control torus. "My people used to think we could keep time on the right track."

"Can't they help us now?"

The Doctor shook his head. "They're all dead. As good as."

"Tell me."

"Not much to tell. We were quite a normal race but then someone decided to stoke up a star or two. Manipulated them. Turned them nova. All of a sudden we had more power than we knew what to do with. We discovered time-travel, regenerated our bodies to cheat death. We grew arrogant. Called ourselves Time Lords, had the nerve to lay down so-called Laws of Time."

"What went wrong?"

"We were merely observers at first. Then we began to get involved and finally we went to war with the Daleks. I mentioned them before. They wanted to rule time themselves. The Time War wiped out both races."

"But not you."

The Doctor looked uncomfortable. "That is my curse. But the fact remains that without the Time Lords time is fragile. Given the right circumstances it can twist with unexpected results."

"And you can see all this?" Kim was incredulous.

"Sort of. And in this case I don't like what I see. There are too many new fixed points. It's a mess, Kim. And I don't know what to do." He entered the centre of the control torus through the small opening at its rear. "Look. I'd like to show you what I mean."

The Doctor snapped on a switch and a new holographic canopy sprang up around him. It was transparent, like a giant soap bubble. Many colours infused its surface. Kim could make out a web of pale blue lines within, surrounding the Doctor like an ethereal wicker basket.

"This is a Timescape, Kim. A representation of all the recent events affecting us. Look at the blue lines. Those are the fixed points. I can't see a break, can you? There's no weakness Kim. Reality, as we now know it, is fixed." His voice seemed to falter momentarily as the Timescape image snapped off.

"Then all the things that have happened...the crash...you and my mother...Jo Grant...the end of the world..."

"But it's plain wrong Kim! I know it. In here." The Doctor tapped his forehead. " I was at the end of the Earth. Billions of years in the future. When the sun expanded and swallowed it up. Not destroyed in the 52nd century. And Jo Grant. I told you about her. She didn't die on Peladon. Then there's your mother and me. I'm not meant to be your father, Kim. It's, well, ridiculous." He had become animated, angry in his helplessness. In sheer frustration he slammed his fist down onto the surface of the controls with some force. Kim had never seen him like this.

He came out from the control torus and looked at his companion. "I'm sorry, Kim. I-I don't think there is anything I can do about it." He sucked at his fist, like a recalcitrant schoolboy.

Kim tried to be breezy. "Look. It's not your fault. We need to find somewhere to rest. So that you can think things out." She took his hand away from his mouth, noting the beginnings of a bruise and a smear of blood. "You haven't broken this have you?"

He shook his head.

"Thank God for that. We'd barely have a pair of hands between us-"

Kim was interrupted by a small chime from the control torus.

They both turned to look at it and saw a remarkable, if unnerving, phenomenon.

Where the Doctor had struck the controls in his anger there was a faint smudge of red.

Blood.

As they watched it seemed to move of its own accord, hovering slightly. It then began to float towards the centre of the torus, becoming a small globule in the process. It reminded Kim of footage she had seen of water in zero-gravity.

"What the hell-?"

The Doctor shushed her frantically.

The blob hung at the centre of the torus, at about head height. Suddenly the Timescape hologram snapped on again. The little drop of blood moved erratically within it, bouncing off the internal blue lines like a pinball.

"It's a Bloodline Search!" exclaimed the Doctor, high-pitched with excitement. "The Tardis is using my genetic material, my DNA, to scan the Timescape! I didn't even know it was capable of this..."

Suddenly the hologram snapped off, leaving the little drop of the Doctor's blood hovering motionless in the air. The Doctor eagerly scanned a readout panel on his control unit but, when he turned to face Kim, disappointment was clearly written on his face.

"No good?" asked Kim.

He shook his head. "Not enough genetic material."

"Well, just give it a bit more of your blood then."

"it's not like that Kim. The sample is reading only 50% viable..." The Doctor straightened up and gave Kim a most searching look. Suddenly he was scrabbling at his egg-timer badge, unclasping it from his coat and straightening out the pin of the clasp. With his other hand he scanned the pin with a flash of blue light from his sonic probe.

"Quickly, Kim. Your thumb!"

"Eh?"

"Don't worry, I've sterilized the pin."

Without further ado the Doctor grabbed Kim's hand and jabbed her thumb with the pin of his badge.

"Hey!"

He squeezed out a bead of blood until it sat like a blister on her skin.

"Come on, Kim."

He led her to the torus and thrust Kim's hand across the threshold. She watched, fascinated as the drop of her blood eased up weightlessly from her thumb. It floated, with unerring accuracy, towards the drop of the Doctor's blood hovering in place.

"You have Time Lord blood in your veins," whispered the Doctor. "You are the other 50% it needs."

The two drops of blood met and formed one. With a suddenness that made them both stand back, the holographic Timescape canopy snapped back on. This time the blood sample flew straight to a single strand of the blue web within. A strand that was noticeably yellow in colour.

"It's found a weakness." The Doctor's voice started as a whisper but ended with a triumphant shout. "IT'S FOUND A WEAKNESS!"

The hologram snapped off. The blood dropped onto the floor.

Wonderingly, the Doctor examined his controls.

"We've got a chance, Kim. Just a single chance. The course is laid in."

"What chance? Where?"

As if on cue the unstable molecules on the Doctor's T-shirt flooded to form a single giant question mark across his chest. "I don't know. But wherever it is, whatever it is, I know it's got something to do with us."

He threw the dematerialisation switch.

(End of Chapter 26)


	27. FERN

Warp War: Chapter 27: _FERN_

**Fusion Energy Research Network (FERN)  
**aka 'Project FERN'.

A programme set up under the auspices of The Stovold Foundation in 3225. Little has been revealed about this project, which is clouded with the same secrecy that surrounds its benefactor, Sir Anton Stovold. The Stovold Foundation acquired a small, unnamed planetoid in the Procyon system, some 11,000 Light Years from Earth for the project.

It is believed that there has been extensive mine-workings at the FERN planetoid, which has been virtually hollowed out according to some accounts. All independent attempts to visit the site have been rebuffed, with reports of V-Ships on defensive patrol around the planetoid as well as other extensive defensive measures.

A recent paparazzi hijack of the Hubble IX Deep Space Rangerscope to try and obtain images of the site was foiled by a defensive refraction device that scrambled all imagery.

The World Government has issued periodic statements that there is no cause for alarm and they are working hand-in-hand with the FERN project to produce a new source of cheap energy that will power the Human Empire for millenia to come.

[CITATION & UPDATE REQUIRED]

**Sir Anton Stovold**

Born in Stockholm, Greater Scandinavia on 1 May 3155.

Anton Stovold achieved fame as Humanity's first 'Infinitaire' – that is, his personal wealth cannot be calculated, it being assumed he can afford just about anything.

He first came to prominence as a mediator between the two sides in the Genome Dispute of 3186 and is generally credited with preventing World War 5. This led to Stovold's first award of the Nobel Prize (Peace). He was also given an honourary Knighthood by the British Federation.

Ever since then he has been hardly out of the headlines, building a string of famous companies and promoting innovation and research. A great scientist himself, he won a second Nobel Prize (Industry) in 3194 for the invention of wireless electricity. His third Nobel followed in 3198 (Astrophysics) for his work in finally proving the existence of Dark Matter. This was followed by his fourth and (to date) final Nobel Prize (Physics) for his theoretical work 'E does not = MC Squared!'

In the early 33rd Century, Stovold dropped out of the public eye and became a fanatical recluse, shunning publicity. There were rumours of ill-health but all attempts at verification have been blocked. He established the Stovold Foundation in 3210 and, as he approaches middle age (he will be 80 this year), he remains as elusive as ever.

[CITATION & UPDATE REQUIRED]

_Extracts from Galikipedia 3235AD Edition._

*

It was one of those chunks of rock. Too big to be classed an asteroid, too small to be a planet. So it was classed a planetoid in the space charts, numbered but unnamed and orbiting Procyon A at a distance of 100 million miles.

A complex of buildings rose from its rocky surface. The tallest of these almost resembled the superstructure of an old battleship. Grey and crenelated, it dominated the FERN complex.

At the very pinnacle of this structure was the office of Hector Voss, Director of Project FERN. The man himself stood with his hands clasped behind his back, looking out through the slab of toughened glass that formed a whole wall of his expansive room.

Voss had a love-hate relationship with that view. He had been stuck on this rock for the last ten years of his life as the FERN project had risen under his hand. It was a grey, desolate environment, enclosed in a bubble of artificial atmosphere that extended down through the underground workings, almost filling the hollow centre of the planetoid. He hated the view because it bored him. He loved it because of the power and wealth that would soon be his because of it.

Behind Voss, sitting nervously at the Director's desk and talking to his back, sat Dr Gant.

Voss tolerated Gant. He had to. Gant had been appointed directly by Sir Anton himself. But Voss thought that Gant was a plodder, a bore. Inefficient. Gant _irritated_ him. Especially when he came bearing bad news, such as now.

"...and, as I say Director, there is some cause for concern. Physically I can sustain him at his present level, which is serious but stable. But his Mental Quotient is sliding by the hour...his last reading is... hovering... below 60..."

Voss raised his hand, silencing Gant instantly.

The Director still looked out of the window as he spoke. "Be precise, Dr Gant. What, _exactly_, is his latest MQ reading?"

"Err...well..56.8, Director."

Voss turned slowly. "That is hardly just 'hovering below 60' is it, Dr Gant ?"

The words hung in the air. Gant fidgeted in the black leather chair under the Director's luminous gaze.

Voss returned to his desk and stared at the old fool opposite. "You know that Insertion is scheduled in 36 hours. The Savant must...and I repeat must...have an MQ of at least 50 at that time. Do you understand me, Dr Gant ? Now, do you think you can do that for us, or do I have to approach Sir Anton with a report of your failure?"

His voice was not raised. It was as precise and as clipped as usual. But it was quieter. As quiet as a shake of a rattlesnake's tail. Which made it all the more disturbing.

Gant babbled. "Oh, certainly not, Director. I think I can guarantee at least a reading of 50 at Insertion. There is a new cocktail of drugs I can use..."

Voss leaned forward on his desk. "Then-go-and-do-it."

Gant stood quickly and backed off, bowing. He was out through the pneumatic doors as fast as his little legs would carry him.

Voss sat back in his massive swivel chair, wondering if it was too late to have the idiot replaced. In all probability it was. His thoughts were interrupted by a chime from his desk panel. He flipped a switch and a disembodied, metallic voice filtered through.

"Chief of Security is waiting for your scheduled review, Director."

"Thank you. Send him through."

At least this was something he didn't have to worry about. A squadron of V-Interceptors was in orbit overhead, supplemented by two ground based laser-turrets and a vast defensive sensor array. In the complex itself was a retinue of Mercenary Federation Guards, armed to the teeth and fanatical in their zeal. Well, at least as fanatical as their immense salaries allowed, which was plenty.

Underground, in the lower levels, the robots stood guard.

And the King was in his counting house. Sir Anton Stovold and his entourage were safely ensconced in their extensive accommodation suite on the other side of the complex.

Security was one thing that Voss didn't have to worry about. The place was as tight as a drum. Nothing could get in.

*

Deep in a tunnel, cut into the rocky mantel of the FERN planetoid, the Tardis materialised...

(End of Chapter 27)


	28. Zero Stop

Warp War: Chapter 28: _Zero. Stop._

"How wonderfully traditional," said the Doctor as they poked their heads out of the police box doors.

"Traditional?" Kim said, squinting.

"A gloomy old tunnel."

They stepped out onto a smooth metal floor, the Doctor locking the doors of his craft behind them.

It was a T-bone of a tunnel, high and dark and cut into rock. At the closed end was an enormous metal pipe, bending out of one side of the wall and then bending back to disappear into the far end of the same wall. It was absolutely massive. It reminded Kim a little of those tube-slides that she had seen at the Thamesford swimming baths. Only this was the size of a couple of double-decker buses, parked on top of each other. It was supported by massive steel struts that were embedded in the metal floor they were standing on.

The Tardis had materialised in the overhang of this giant metal elbow. There was a dull light from overhead panels but the effect was a tunnel of spooky shadows that snaked away into darkness.

The Doctor sniffed the air like a hunting dog. He then surprised Kim by jumping on the spot a couple of times. "Recycled air. Probably an engineered atmosphere contained in an artificial field. Augmented gravity too. Basic terraforming."

"What about the Tardis instruments?"

"Unusually coy. Indications that we are somewhere in the early to mid thirty-third century but that's about all."

"What about this?" Kim waved her hand above her head. "It looks like the world's biggest white-knuckle ride."

The Doctor flashed the beam from his sonic probe overhead and clicked his tongue." Oh, it's a bit more than that, Kim. I'd say it was some kind of massive particle accelerator. Hello, what's this?"

His light fell on to a small console and screen, inset in the rocky wall.

He crossed over to it, scanning with his probe. "This may help. A monitoring terminal. I suspect this is some kind of maintenance access tunnel for that thing, whatever it is."

Something clicked in Kim's head. "Doctor, you said this is some kind of massive particle accelerator. I've read about something like this. Back in my time. In Switzerland. They're trying to make mini-Black Holes or something."

The Doctor gave her a sideways look. "And didn't they mess up! It took me ages to sort that out. Err.._.will_ take me ages..." He looked guilty, as if he'd said too much. "This is on an altogether bigger scale, Kim. And we're definitely not on Earth. Ah, that's it! Schematics."

Under the light of the sonic probe the screen of the terminal lit up and they stared at the diagram it showed.

It appeared as a cat's cradle of twisting lines inside a circular field. It meant nothing to Kim but the Doctor whistled. "There are nearly four hundred miles of pipes here. Figure of eights, spirals, helixes. That thing over there is just part of a vast system, embedded underground. If I'm right then they must have just about hollowed out this place to fit it all in. A fantastic feat of engineering."

"Why?"

The Doctor shrugged."Don't know. But I really don't think it's a white knuckle ride, Kim. It certainly resembles an accelerator of sorts. Massive magnets every few miles. It could propel something at fantastic speeds...hello...what's that in aid of?" His finger traced a single line on the screen that seemed unconnected from the rest of the diagram. "This doesn't reconnect to the main structure. Almost like a branch line...hmm..."

Kim wandered off from the Doctor and his engineering mystery, away from the closed-off end of the tunnel and around a slight bend in the rocky wall. She pulled up as she saw a pair of metal doors set into the far wall. To one side of the doors stood a strange object.

To Kim it resembled a giant golf-ball, at it's height the size of an average man. It rested on a disc-shaped base and was covered with geometric patterns that gave it an almost mathematical precision and a sort of geodesic beauty.

She thought it was some sort of abstract sculpture, but as Kim took a careful step forward the thing gave a hum. One or two telltale lights flickered on it's surface and a tiny sensor array rose from its top, like a little umbrella.

And it spoke. A quiet, trilling, electronic voice, but enough to make Kim jump.

"Zero. Stop." A small rod extended from near its 'waist', pointing at Kim.

"No sudden moves, Kim." said a voice from behind her. She felt the Doctor's presence at her side. "That rod is a thermal lance. It can cut through rock with ease. It would kill us in an instant."

"R-right. You've seen this before?"

"Its called a Mechanoid. They were used to prepare planets ahead of human colonisation. They're robots, dangerous ones."

Kim looked at the motionless object. "What should we do? Put our hands up?"

Suddenly the doors behind the Mechanoid swished open, disgorging half a dozen men in black armoured vests and military helmets. They surrounded the Doctor and Kim, adopting combat positions and covering them with huge blasters.

The Doctor sighed. "NOW we put our hands up..."

*

Director Voss frowned as his desk chimed.

He was enjoying a stress-free moment with his Security Chief. He always enjoyed speaking with people who brought him good news. And , as Voss had anticipated, the Chief had brought him good news. Security was at 100%. The FERN complex was locked down. Impregnable. They were sharing a drop of Saurian Brandy in acknowledgment of the fact.

"Yes?" said Voss.

"Sorry to disturb you, Director. But I've just had a report that two intruders have been captured in a level two access tunnel."

"WHAAATTT!" Voss glanced across at his Security Chief, who seemed frozen into place, about to sip from his glass. He looked as though he had just lost a million credits on the turn of a card.

Voss controlled himself with an effort. "Thank you." He reached forward and took the glass from the trembling hand of the man opposite. "I don't think you have time to sit around drinking, do you?"

The man in the black leather uniform scrambled to his feet and left the room running.

*

Voss looked at the two specimens arrayed before him and mentally pigeon-holed them within a second.

Troublemakers. Green Colonists from the Spinward Arm or somewhere.

The woman as wearing ...what were they called again...spectacles. Nobody wore spectacles these days. Not when corrective laser surgery was available freely to all. A ten-minute job. And she only had one hand! She could be fitted with a cybernetic prosthetic in any Stovold Foundation clinic in an hour. With 95% accuracy of feeling. No, a definite regressive.

And her mate. Just looking at him. A farmer.

'Back to the Land' types, both of them.

Had to be.

Yet they had done the seemingly impossible and by-passed a triple-A security lockdown.

The man was handcuffed, standing in front of the Director with a rather disconcerting easy grace. The woman was being held firmly by one of half-a-dozen guards.

The Security Chief spoke. "They were picked up by one of the Mechanoids in an access tunnel, Director."

"Armed?"

He shook his head.

The farmer yawned, stretching his handcuffed arms in front of him. There was a tinkle as the cuffs dropped limply onto the Director's desk.

Six blasters pointed at his head, safety-interlocks clicking off.

"A nice little trick I learned from my friend Harry H, " said the man, to nobody in particular, He looked at Voss steadily. "Now then, Mr Director, I am going to reach slowly into my pocket to produce my credentials. You will want to see them. Tell your boys to remember I am unarmed. OK?"

Amazingly, it seemed that this languid individual was somehow dictating proceedings! But Voss nodded imperceptibly anyway.

The man produced a wallet from his side pocket and flashed it.

"Tell me what you see."

Voss did not like what he saw. He saw the emblem of the Swooping Eagle! This pair were investigators from the Inner Bureau!

Oh Hell! Not here. Not now, after all these years...

"Ahem. Your credentials are impressive but I would have appreciated some advance notice of your visit. The project is approaching its final stages. My men are understandably jumpy when someone shows up out of the blue like this. How did you penetrate our security, anyway?"

The man tapped the side of his nose. "We have our ways."

At that moment there was a small chime from Voss' desk. Different to the normal alert from his PA. This was the priority channel.

"Voss." said a voice. "A little bird tells me that we have visitors. When were you going to appraise me of that fact?" The voice had a lisping, almost asthmatic quality.

Of course he would know, thought Voss. He knows everything that goes on here. "I was just about to call you, Sir Anton," he lied. "There are two..visitors...they have credentials from the Inner Bureau."

There was a pause. "Bring them to me, Voss."

"They haven't been questioned to my satisfaction yet, Sir Anton -"

The voice became a whispering sibilant rasp, "Bring-them-to-me."

(End of Chapter 28)


	29. Stovold

Warp War: Chapter 29: _Stovold_

Whatever Kim had expected when they were led away to meet the mysterious voice, she hadn't expected this.

They had been led through a maze of interconnecting corridors and elevators which reeked of ultra-modernism. Gleaming neon-white, dotted with hermetically-sealed doors guarded by heavily armed troops in black leather armour and visors. Occasionally there was a window, looking out onto the same rocky vista she had seen from the Director's office.

Yet this chamber...

The doors had swished open and the Director had ushered them into a shadowy space, lit by blazing wall-torches. There was a definite smell of burning incense and a faint zither muzak, twanging away repetitively. Bookcases lined the walls.

The place was furnished with ornate drapery, exquisite couches and soft furnishings. The room was much bigger than Kim had expected, with many alcoves and several arches leading off.

On the opposite wall Kim saw a painting. A very familiar painting. A woman with an enigmatic smile.

"Am I going mad or is that the Mona Lisa over there?"

The Doctor followed her gaze. "The original, unless I'm very much mistaken," he murmured, squinting around the room. "And have you noticed the ceiling? The Sistine Chapel. Over there the Venus de Milo; Michelangelo's David; a Hockney or two; Rolf Harris' _Queen Elizabeth II; _Quc'Dhorr's _Image of a Thought. _Quite a collection. Someone has a very keen eye, as well as very deep pockets."

"Sir Anton has infinite pockets, " said Director Voss at their side.

" 'In Xanadu did Kublai Khan, a stately pleasure-dome decree'..."mused the Doctor.

"Frankie Goes To Hollywood," said Kim, brightly.

The Doctor tutted. "Samuel Taylor Coleridge, actually."

Kim made a face at him then pulled up abruptly. "With all this beautiful stuff, why this monstrosity?" she said, distastefully.

It was a sculpture of a man, sitting in a chair. A mockery of a man. It wore a multi-coloured Kaftan to hide its bloated body. Huge arms rested across it's chest, swollen and knotted, like children's balloons. But it was the face. One side looked reasonably normal but the left side had inflated with fat to the extent that the weight of it dragged down the eye into the folds of its left cheek. The thick-lipped mouth curled down into a blubbery neck. It almost looked as if half the face was made up of candle wax, placed too near an open flame.

Then it spoke. "I agree with you, young lady. A blot on the landscape indeed."

Kim gave a little yelp of surprise and jumped back, banging into the Doctor. Her heart thudded. "I-I'm terribly sorry. I didn't mean to offend you."

A giant puffy hand fluttered on his chest, dismissively.

"May I introduce Sir Anton Stovold." said Voss, bowing slightly towards the apparition in the chair.

"I'm the Doctor and this is my friend Kim."

There was a slight whine and Sir Anton turned towards the Doctor. Kim could clearly see that his chair was motorised.

"You are a doctor? Then what do you make of me?" Sir Anton's voice had a lisping quality as his mouth worked to get his words out. It sounded as if his tongue was too big for his mouth. It probably is, thought Kim.

"I'm not a doctor of medicine. Whatever happened to cause this?"

"Rigellian Pustulitis."

"Oh. I've heard of it. Very rare."

"Tell me what you know."

"Only that is a disease found in the Rigellis system. In humans it inflates the cells and fatty tissue at a molecular level until -"

"The victim explodes."

"You have my sympathies." murmured the Doctor. "It is incurable, as far as I know."

" There are some treatments that delay the inevitable. I have exhausted them now. I have less than a year at the outside."

"Again, my commiserations."

"Oh, don't waste your sympathy. I have absolutely no intention of letting this beat me, eh Voss?"

The Director smiled. "Indeed not, Sir Anton."

Stovold's chair whirred and he glided over to the Doctor. "Director Voss informs me that you are from the Central Bureau."

The Doctor made a non-commital noise in his throat.

"May I see your accreditation?"

The Doctor passed over the wallet containing his psychic paper. Stovold held it awkwardly in a giant hand, squinting at it through his lopsided eyes. His chair rotated.

"Voss. I think you and your security people can usefully leave us for a few minutes. Wait outside."

"But Sir Anton...security protocols..."

Stovold raised his voice, calling over his shoulder. "Sunil! Here!"

There was an immediate padding of feet. A figure appeared from a side arch and dodged between two free-standing Henry Moore statues.

He was probably the tallest man Kim had ever seen, and built , it appeared, from granite.

He stood impassively, with his massive muscular arms folded, gazing imperiously at Stovold. But most amazing of all was his attire. He was dressed like something out of the Arabian Nights, with a miniscule open tunic, pantaloons and a turban. To complete the ensemble Kim spotted a wicked curved scimitar, hanging from his belt.

"I'm sure that Sunil will be very attentive to my needs, Voss." He waved away the Director and his accompanying guards.

When the doors had hissed shut behind them Stovold turned to the Doctor. He waved the psychic paper at him. "You know, I tried to develop something like this nearly fifty years ago. Never could get the hang of the perceptor matrices, though. Is this your doing?"

The Doctor inclined his head.

"Ah, a man of science after my own heart. What is your success rate with it ?"

"99%, Sir Anton. You are a rare individual. Only one in a hundred is resistant to my psychic paper."

Stovold tossed the wallet back to the Doctor. "There was a time when I would have gone through this with you. Refined it. Manufactured it, even. But that time has long passed."

His chair glided over and Kim felt Stovold's gaze settle on her knotted left sleeve. "I see that you yourself have your own little imperfection." Was there a sneering emphasis on the word 'little'?

"An accident," said Kim." Frostbite."

"How clumsy of you." Stovold made a noise in his throat. "It's been twenty-five years ago since my 'accident'. I was delivering food supplies to the colony on Rigel V. Charity work. A good photo-opportunity, my advisors said. Look what I got for my trouble. No more photo opportunities."

Kim could hear bitter anger and frustration rising in Stovold's voice. There was a charged silence.

She tried to change the subject.

"Your friend here doesn't say much, "said Kim, glancing at the imposing Sunil.

"Ah Sunil. My favourite retainer. Loyal, obedient, dutiful. I found him in the slums of New Ankara."

"What does he do, apart from standing about and playing the heavy?"

" This and that. Personal security for one, as now. But he has a primary role. He oversees my Harem. "

"Harem?"

"Perhaps you would like to see. I am rather proud of my collection."

He led them through the same archway that Sunil had appeared from, down a short passage.

The smell of incense and the zither music multiplied as they approached an ante room.

It was a dark space of soft furnishings, candlelight and clouds of exotic smoke.

As Kim peered through the gloom she was shocked to see a number of young men and women draped about the place in various stages of stupification. And undress.

Kim shuddered as Stovold squeezed her shoulder with one of his blubbery hands.

"Are you impressed with my collection, young lady? "

"Some of these people are barely more than children!" A terrible thought slipped through her defenses. "You don't mean you..."

Stovold laughed. An obscene sound. "Not for several years now. Not since my condition worsened. Still, a man must have his peccadilloes. Some kind of stimulation. I just watch now..."

Kim turned, staring up into the offset eyes. "You sick bastard."

"Sick? I must plead guilty. The other word I do not recognise. I take it to be some archaic insult. Pray, What is a 'bastard'?"

"Take a look in the mirror!"

Kim turned on her heel, brushing past the Doctor and out into the main room, past the impassive Sunil. She stared moodily up at Da Vinci's masterpiece, thinking its timeless beauty out of place in this stinking den.

She heard quick footsteps behind her and the Doctor's voice whispered in her ear. "I know, Kim. I know. But remember why we are here. We need to keep him talking..." He broke off as Kim heard Stovold's chair hum into the room.

"It seems our young friend is a little...how shall we say...sensitive..." There was a falsetto giggle and Kim felt her anger rise again.

The Doctor patted her on the shoulder and she restrained herself. But she didn't turn round.

"You told us that you only had a year left and I expressed my sympathy. " The Doctor's voice was controlled. "I am now beginning to re-assess that statement."

"Actually, I only have about 36 hours left." said Stovold.

"I don't understand."

"Not many do. Certainly not the World Government. When I promised them unlimited power for their expanding, corrupt Empire they fell over themselves. Gave me a hundred surplus Mechanoids to build this place. The FERN complex."

"And the Accelerator underneath. I've seen the schematics." said the Doctor. "What is FERN?"

" 'Fusion Energy Research Network'. A fiction. In 36 hours we will insert a capsule into the Accelerator which will speed it up using phased ultra-magnets. When it reaches Light Speed the capsule will be fired from a giant cannon into the heart of Procyon A. Project FERN will be complete."

"What do you hope to achieve with that?" The Doctor's voice had a certain edge to it.

"Oh, the government expects that the star will go nova and they will have more energy than they know what to do with."

"But that's rubbish, isn't it? What will be in this capsule?"

"Me."

Kim turned to face Stovold. "That's an elaborate way of committing suicide," she said. "But can I book a ringside seat?"

"Oh ye of little faith." The blubbery head shook. He spoke quickly, with passion."I'm not going to die. I'm going to be born again. All these infected cells will be cleansed and replaced in a new formation. I will return triumphant. Healthy, fit, even young. A new man. I am going to make history with this new process. I've devised a name for it."

"Go on," said the Doctor, slowly.

"Regeneration!"

(End of Chapter 29)


	30. The Savant

Warp War: Chapter 30: _The Savant_

Kim felt the Doctor flinch at her side. "Regeneration?" he echoed.

She looked at him. He seemed pale.

Regeneration.

She knew the Doctor had been many men. She had never really gone into the details with him but Stovold's plan seemed to have affected the Doctor profoundly.

"Indeed, "said Stovold.

The Doctor's mouth worked but nothing came out.

So Kim took the initiative. "Rot," she said. "How can flying into a star at the speed of light end up in anything other than suicide? "

A flicker of a smile played on Stovold's twisted lips. His chair half-turned towards the Doctor. " It seems our man of science has a more open mind on the subject."

"You would need block transfer mathematics of the highest order to utilise the energy," the Doctor said slowly." A form of calculus which is beyond your capabilities..."

"Very good," said Stovold. "And if I said we had the software? Here, now?"

"Then I would very much like to see it."

Stovold regarded the Doctor evenly for a moment, then he glided over to the exterior door, which swished open at his approach.

"Voss!"

The Director stepped into the room. "Yes, Sir Anton?"

"We are going to see the Savant."

*

Kim and the Doctor were led across the complex through a labyrinthine succession of corridors, accompanied by Stovold, Voss and a retinue of half a dozen guards who kept their dangerous-looking weapons trained on them at all times.

They passed several people at intervals, dressed in clinical white uniforms who stood aside and bowed obsequiously as Stovold passed by.

At last they rounded a corner and came face to face with a massive set of doors, which hissed open when Director Voss input an access code. This revealed a second set of identical doors which yielded in the same way.

They entered a large bay area. Again, the technicians present bowed as Stovold entered. They were manning various consoles dotted around the walls. But to Kim, these were incidentals. Forgotten in a moment.

In the centre of the opposite wall was a large pair of transparent cylindrical doors stretching from floor to ceiling. Inside the space they enclosed was a pitiful spectacle. It was a man. Or at least Kim thought it was a man.

He was hanging limply from a metal cruciform device that flashed with various coloured telltale lights. He wore a wire mesh skull cap that connected to the cruciform by wires. Various transparent tubes led from his body, apparently both feeding him and disposing of his waste at the same time. The barest strip of rag served as his clothing.

But it was his physical condition that brought tears to Kim's eyes.

She had seen the history programmes on TV. The concentration camp survivors who had been little more than living skeletons. It was a sight that had always made Kim turn away from the screen in anguish. But here it was again.

His head was a skull with no hair and deep, unseeing eyes. His legs were held clear of the floor and his arms were extended, strapped onto the crossbar of the cruciform. All the limbs were shrivelled.

But worst of all he was talking. Incessantly mumbling and chattering.

Kim couldn't hear what he was saying but she pressed against the transparent doors anyway, feeling sick to her stomach.

"This is the software," said Stovold. Was there a hint of pride in his voice? "A genius Savant. He is the reason I will succeed." Stovold's chair swivelled. "We found him in South America. He won an Empire-wide mathematics competition organised by my foundation. Only when I met him did I realise what we had. A way of turning my theories into reality. His mathematical ability was extraordinary, but then we saw him produce a new form of calculus. One that would enable us to harness the force of a nova and power my regeneration."

"Show me the calculus." The Doctor's voice was little more than a whisper.

Stovold indicated an overhead screen full of mathematical symbols, constantly changing.

"That is what he is saying. We have used it to run masses of simulations. How many is it now, Voss?"

"Six hundred and fifty two, Sir Anton."

"Of course, for the actual run he will be plugged into the capsule, along with me. To provide real-time data and effect the Regeneration..."

"How long has he been like that?" Kim had not taken her eyes off the mumbling figure. Her voice was as hard as nails.

"Dr Gant!" said Stovold. A little man with tuffty hair stepped forward. "This is the Savant's physician."

Gant cleared his throat. "The Savant has been hooked up to the mainframe for just over five years now. His Mental Quotient remains steady at-"

"Five years!" Kim swung round. She took a step towards Gant. "You are his doctor?"

"I am."

"Tell me, where I come from doctors have to take an oath of care. The Hippocratic Oath."

Gant looked puzzled. "I have taken the oath-"

"Then you ought to be ashamed of yourself. You are a fucking disgrace."

Gant's face clouded. "How dare you-" He balled and raised his fist, only to suddenly find his wrist held in a steely grip.

"You'll have to come through me first," said the Doctor, dangerously,

Gant suddenly found himself on the floor. He sat holding his wrist, like a scolded child.

There a general scuffle as the Doctor and Kim were jumped on and restrained by the guards at Stovold's barked command. His chair hummed and he faced Kim. Up close.

"My, you are a feisty one," he purred. "You know, you would have made an intriguing addition to my Harem. We could have done with a bit of older meat." His blubbery hand touched Kim's hair. "What, with some laser surgery for your eyesight, a bit of a makeover and a new hand from our cybernetic division, you would have been a most stimulating diversion..."

Slowly. with quiet control and accompanied by a detailed anatomical description, Kim told Stovold precisely what he could do with his cybernetic hand.

Stovold giggled. "Oh, my dear young lady, you_ can_ talk dirty! Do it some more." He was up close, whispering.

She spat in his face.

There was a general gasp from the onlookers, who studiously turned away to busy themselves at their consoles.

One of the guards raised the butt of his blaster to club Kim down.

"No!" Stovold shook his head. A dribble of Kim's saliva nestled on the bridge of his bloated nose. "Take them away. Out of my sight. Lock them up somewhere and throw away the key. They, too, will share in my legacy."

"Stovold! Listen! This plan of yours will cost the lives of billions - "A gauntleted hand clamped itself over the Doctor's mouth. He and Kim were dragged out of the room by the guards.

Stovold turned to Director Voss. "The result of the last simulation?"

"One hundred percent, Sir Anton. As were the previous twenty five."

"And the Savant is stable?"

"Oh yes, Sir Anton." put in Gant, wringing his hands.

"Then it is settled. I don't want to risk any more uninvited guests. Start the countdown for Insertion. We go now!"

(End of Chapter 30)


	31. Insertion

Warp War: Chapter 31: _Insertion_

There was a decided air of tension around the bay as they prepared to disconnect the Savant from the mainframe.

"Very well, Gant." lisped Stovold.

Gant tapped his code into the lock and the transparent doors enclosing the Savant retracted. They could hear the Savant now, mumbling his incessant equations. Gant crossed quickly to the cruciform and his hypo hissed at the Savant's neck.

The Savant looked up with some surprise. His mouth closed and his head slumped forward.

"Quickly now," urged Gant as the crash team moved forward with a trolley. "You know the sequence. Waste tube first..."

The Savant was quickly disconnected from his life support systems, with his wire skull-cap connecting him to the mainframe removed last.

"Right!" called Gant. "Support him! Power down!"

The Cruciform lighting snapped off and there was a descending whine of power throughout the bay. The Savant fell forward from the cruciform, supported by two technicians and was placed on the trolley, the first time he had been horizontal in five years.

Gant scanned him with his medikit. "OK, he's alive. Some shock but within parameters."

"What about the Mental Quotient?" rasped Stovold.

"Err.. MQ steady at 55. Again, within parameters."

"Quickly then. Get him to the capsule and wired in." urged Stovold, and the trolley was rushed out.

"Well, that's the first hurdle," observed Gant, conversationally. "There was always the chance that he could have died from shock when we disconnected him."

"Then I suggest you attend to your patient, Dr Gant. Both your lives depend on it."

Gant hurried out of the bay in a cold sweat, the rattlesnake words of Sir Anton Stovold reverberating in his head.

*

The Doctor and Kim had been led halfway across the FERN complex and thrown, none too gently, into a cell.

It may once have been some kind of storage space as there was low shelving running along one wall but it was otherwise a windowless, featureless metal box.

As the pneumatic door hissed shut on them the Doctor immediately pulled out his sonic probe and scanned it minutely. He turned off the probe, scowled and kicked the door moodily. "Multiplex sixteen-ply lock with random sequencing," he barked,

"But you can open it, right?" said Kim.

"Oh, I can open it."

She saw his face. "How long?"

"Just this side of seven weeks."

There was a long silence.

"There will be another way," said Kim. "You know there is. Come on, Doctor ! You must have been locked up like this stacks of times..."

"Three hundred and thirteen, to be precise."

"Whew. Good job you're not claustrophobic then."

"I am actually. I just don't show it. Look Kim, stop wittering and let me think. I wish you hadn't riled Stovold like that. I was getting somewhere with him. It's worked well enough in the past. You know, let the megalomaniac talk himself into trouble..."

"Sorry, but if anybody deserves a spit in the face it's him." She lapsed into a moody silence but couldn't hold it for long.

"Doctor..."

"Mmm?"

"That thing the Tardis did. You know, the bloodline trace. I was wondering...It's not Stovold is it?"

"What's not Stovold?"

"He's not our...descendant is he?"

The Doctor waved Kim to sit on one of the shelves. "When I saw the Savant's mathematics I knew at once. He is using Time Lord Calculus. It is the only type of block transfer that would give Stovold's plan any chance of success."

"The Savant! Then you mean..."

"Yes, Kim. I'm sure that the Savant is the reason we are here. He is of our blood. Our descendant, tracing his line all the way back to me...and your mother."

"God!" Kim felt awed. "It's not going to work is it? This regeneration thing?"

"Kim, we know it's not going to work. We've seen the results, remember? It might have worked if the calculus had been stronger. It's how my people gained the power to become Time Lords after all. Stellar manipulation."

"So the Savant has got it wrong?"

The Doctor shrugged. "His calculus is weak. Failing. Probably due to his physical condition. It's what I think the bloodline check detected. It's the weak point in this mutated timeline."

"What can we do about it?"

"We have to stop Stovold's capsule hitting Procyon A. If we don't he's going to punch a hole through to E-Space and the star will collapse into a CVE."

"But how will that create the Screamers?"

"Rigellian pustulitis, "said the Doctor. "Stovold's cell-mutating disease. Combined with the Savant's corrupt software. Somehow it will cause a chain reaction in the Exo Universe which will ultimately result in the creation of the Screamers, the Warp War, mutated time...all of it. Meldlight, remember?"

"So what can we do, locked up in here?"

The Doctor looked at Kim for a long time. "We break the glass and set off the fire alarm."

"Eh?"

He held out his hand. "Plan B. That packet I gave you. Back in the UNIT lab. My earlier self..."

Kim had forgotten all about it. She scrambled in her right-hand pocket and pulled it out.

"How did you know about that?" she demanded.

"_I_ _remember doing it, _of course."

He took the object from her.

"How come the guards never found this stuff when they searched us, anyway?"

"Well, I've got transdimensional pockets in my coat." He held up the packet," and this has a built-in perception filter. Tends to make people overlook it. Like the Tardis."

Kim watched as the Doctor broke the seal and extracted the contents. They appeared to be six plain, oversized playing cards, blank on one side and having an ornate script of interlocking cogs on the other.

Kim watched, baffled, as he laid them out in a circular pattern on the floor.

"And a game of Patience is going to help how?"

"No games, Kim. We're going to send for some help. This is a miniature data-box. A bit like that disc we received in Cardiff. Only this is Time Lord technology."

Kim frowned. "But you said that the Time Lords are dead. How can they help us?"

The Doctor sat cross-legged by the circle of cards. "You're right. I'm not asking for help from the Time Lords. You remember I told you that the Time Lords began by merely observing? Then they started getting involved in things and eventually that led to the Time War. Well, when they realised that war was inevitable they constructed an automated monitoring system."

"Monitoring what?"

"The space-time vortex. We called it the 'Rogue Element And Paradox Energy Realignment System.' "

"Snappy," said Kim.

"'Reapers' for short. An artificial life-form. Semi-sentient. They seek out and close up wounds in time, like bacteria. It's a kind of back up system. To stand in for the Time Lords themselves."

"Well where are they when you need them!?" exclaimed Kim, with feeling. "I'd say this is a pretty major mutation in time, wouldn't you? Dad."

The Doctor winced. "The Reaper system is certainly not perfect. It fell dormant after the Time War, although I did come across them once. A long time ago now...I was locked in a church..." He shook his head, as if dislodging an unwelcome memory.

"What are they like?"

The Doctor shrugged. "Anamorphic. Tailored to adapt their physical properties to their environment and the task in hand. If we send this message, using Time Lord technology, we may just be able to summon them. Come and sit down here with me, Kim. We're going to do this together. Your Time Lord half will help. In this case two heads are definitely better than one. "

Kim sat opposite the Doctor, the circle of cards between them.

The Doctor reached over, placing the fingers of his right hand against Kim's forehead.

She did the same, resting her fingertips on his brow.

"OK, Kim. Now what I want you to do is close your eyes and think back over the events since we collided with Dekka's ship. All the anomalies. I will do the same. OK?"

She nodded.

_The crash...The rescue...1973...her left hand...saving Little Kim...her mom married to the Doctor...The brother or sister she never had...Jo Grant's death...The end of the world..._

Her eyes snapped open simultaneously with the Doctor's. She looked down. The previously blank cards were covered with a mosaic of moving images which reflected their thoughts. She spotted the cave on the ice planet, her mother's face, Jo Grant, and the exploding Earth, amongst many others. The six cards were covered in them.

Without warning the cards moved together, as if by an unseen hand. They formed a cube, enclosing the images within. The cube suddenly started to rotate, standing on a corner and gathering speed. It became a blur. There was a discordant note, similar to a high-pitched Tardis engine.

The box vanished.

"What do we do now?" asked Kim.

The Doctor's T-shirt flushed into a new format; a rendition of Rodin's 'The Thinker'.

"We wait. And hope."

Kim's stomach chose that moment to make an appalling rumbling sound. She looked around the featureless walls of their cell. "I suppose it's too much to hope for a bacon and egg sandwich ?"

*

The Wellhead was a large octagonal room, overlooked by windowed galleries. At the centre of the room was an open maw; the access point into the underground Accelerator beneath the FERN complex.

A number of technicians were moving about in the Wellhead, checking data from the screens and consoles around the walls of the cavernous space.

"Insertion is due in forty five minutes and counting..." announced a loudspeaker.

At that moment the thick double doors into the room juddered open. Sir Anton Stovold glided into the room, accompanied by Director Voss. There was a smattering of applause from the occupants.

Stovold had changed from his Kaftan into a huge pressure suit, which made him appear even more bloated and massive. He wore a protective helmet but the visor was up and he looked around the room from his over-ripe ruin of a face, acknowledging the applause with the flutter of a gloved hand.

Dr Gant approached him.

"Well?" asked Stovold.

"Everything is ready, Sir Anton. The Savant has been installed and wired into the capsule."

Stovold looked up at the capsule, which was being held by a giant grab, off to the side of the maw. It was open, segmented into four quarters. It shone silver in the glaring light of the Wellhead.

"I will address the workforce, "said Stovold. He touched a control on his chair. His voiced boomed out, relayed throughout the complex.

"My fellow FERN operatives. The moment of history is almost upon us. I wish to pay tribute to the years of dedication and hard work which you have invested in this project. I know of the many sacrifices that you have made. It is with pleasure that I announce that once this project is concluded you will all receive an unimaginable bonus, each and every one of you. That will be my legacy to you all."

There was an even larger round of applause at this news.

Stovold clicked off the speaker and turned to Voss.

"I'm ready."

The detailed programme called for fifteen minutes to lift Sir Anton Stovold from his chair and place him into the capsule, using a special harness. It took all that time but at last he was lowered into his half of the capsule.

Restraints clamped him into place in his individually tailored, cushioned seat.

Stovold looked across at the Savant, hunched opposite. He was, even to Stovold's eyes, a pathetic figure, mumbling his calculus and being wired into the capsule systems at several points of his skeletal body. He was part of the machine.

"We are ready for closure, Sir Anton." said Voss, through his earpiece.

"Go." muttered Stovold.

The segments of the capsule rose with a hiss of hydraulics. They came together, sealing hermetically. The capsule was a perfect featureless silver ball.

At ten minutes to go a klaxon sounded and the technicians exited the wellhead, scurrying to look down from behind the glass windows of the overhead galleries.

At five minutes the grab holding the capsule swung out until it hovered over the maw.

With a minute left the giant magnets of the underground Accelerator fired up. Shards of electric light flickered at the maw.

As the countdown concluded it seemed that the whole of the FERN complex held its collective breath.

"...ZERO..."

The grab opened, like a giant flexing hand. The capsule dropped into the maw with an elegant gentleness. It passed the first magnet and was kicked, at gathering speed, onto the next.

Insertion...

(End of Chapter 31)


	32. KAH

Warp War: Chapter 32 : _KAH_

Director Voss poured himself a good measure of Saurian Brandy and looked out of his office window. It seemed peaceful enough but he knew that deep underground, in the complex miles of piping that made up the Accelerator, the capsule containing his erstwhile boss and the living software called the Savant was screaming around the circuit at astronomical speed.

He looked at his watch. Ten minutes ago the capsule had passed the point of no return. Control had been handed over to its internal systems. Its speed, now approaching .75 Light, precluded any further signals from the base above.

Voss would be back in time for the start of the capsule's journey to Procyon A in just under ninety minutes, when it would be fired at light speed from the massive metal barrel on the other side of the rocky mountains surrounding the FERN complex.

But for now he just fancied a quiet drink.

Voss wondered idly if Sir Anton was already dead. He didn't much care to be honest. He was already promised a quarter of Stovold's fortune whatever the outcome of this crackpot scheme. It was written into his contract.

The door to his office chimed and opened to reveal the unwelcome figure of Dr Gant.

"Director. May I speak with you?"

Do you have to? thought Voss, waving him in.

"Will you join me, Dr Gant, in a glass of nectar? I feel rather sanguine at this moment, with the end in sight."

Gant shook his head. He looked anxious. He was wringing his hands.

"What can I do for you?"

"Director, I have not been entirely honest with you."

"What about?"

"The Savant."

"Oh?"

"Despite my best efforts, his MQ at Insertion... dipped."

Voss put down his glass."You said his MQ reading was 55 at Insertion."

Gant fidgetted. "I've re-checked. It was actually 43."

Gant looked up as though expecting disaster. In fact Voss burst out laughing.

"Director...did you hear me? The Mental Quotient had dropped well below tolerance..."

"Well, well. So the software is corrupt. Do I look as though I care?" said Voss. "I never gave Stovold a chance anyway. Whether the MQ was 100 or whatever. This has just proved it. poor old Stovold. He'll go flying into the sun and be _most _surprised at the outcome. No renewal. No so-called regeneration. Just a puff of gas and hey presto."

"Y-You're not angry?"

"What can we do?" Voss checked his watch again. "The capsule has gone independent. Even if we wanted to -" He frowned as his outer door hissed open again. "What the hell is that doing up here?"

A Mechanoid glided into the Director's room. The Mechanoids were supposed to be confined to the lower levels. This was unprecedented.

"Return to your station." ordered Voss, nonplussed.

The machine did not move. Instead it projected a holographic image into the centre of the room. The bloated ruin of a face that Voss knew so well.

"Hello, Voss," said the voice of Sir Anton Stovold. "If things have gone to plan the capsule has just gone independent of external control."

"Sir Anton?"

"Don't bother trying to converse. This is a recording. You know Voss, I have heard a few things about you. I have many eyes and ears about this place. You never really thought I would succeed did you? No matter. So long as you got your reward. What was it now? A quarter of my fortune?" The holograph laughed. "You never were a good mathematician, were you Voss. I'm an _Infinitaire_. What's a quarter of Infinity? It's incalculable. A mathematical joke. That should have given you a clue. Still, I have decided that all of the FERN workers will share in my legacy. And you will be the first. A fresh, clean, start for when I return."

His voice hardened, becoming a mechanical rasp. "Mechanoid Protocol Stovold 1. Code KAH. Activate! Goodbye, Mr Director Voss. See you on the other side."

The hologram snapped off.

"Code KAH accepted," trilled the Mechanoid. "Kill All Humans." Its thermal lance extended.

"Oh my God, " breathed Gant. "What are we going to do-"

Voss looked pale, but managed a tight smile. "I don't know about you, Gant, but I very much think I am about to die." He reached for the glass of Saurian Brandy on his desk. His hand was trembling, oh so very slightly. "Here's to the legacy of Sir Anton-Fucking-Stovold!"

"Carbonize!" The Mechanoid fired, bathing the two men in electric blue flames.

Voss and Gant scorched into crusted black parodies of themselves before collapsing into ashes.

The Mechanoid relayed the KAH signal throughout the FERN complex.

All over the base, dormant Mechanoids started to move.

*

The FERN Security Chief stalked down a corridor, having completed his snap inspection of Level 1. Things were going OK. His men were on the ball. Despite the sudden appearance of those two strangers, the lockdown seemed secure.

His helmet-radio beeped and a panicked voice crackled out. "Level 4 patrol reporting in, Boss! Mayday! Mayday! It's the Mechanoids. They're on the move..." There was a roaring sound, a brief yell and silence.

What the hell?

He turned to run for the nearest elevator only to almost collide with the Mechanoid that had glided silently up the corridor behind him. He looked down at the machine's thermal lance, baffled.

_Strange. The air all around him suddenly turned incandescent._

_Strange. He couldn't see at all and his skin felt tight and dry on his bones. God, he could do with a glass of water!_

_Strange. His lungs suddenly seared as he inhaled._

Strangest of all, he couldn't think of anything anymore.

*

You can call it a massacre, or a cull. The Mechanoids were relentless in fulfilling Stovold's final program.

The mercenary guards put up the strongest resistance but their blasters were ineffective against Mechanoid armour and they burned in their droves.

*

At Wellhead Control a throng of technicians were focused on the capsule readouts when the door hissed open. "Close that door!" somebody called, without looking up. They were his last words.

The Mechanoid at the open door used a different technique, filling the control room with a billowing flame that was almost alive. The technicians found that they were suddenly breathing fire into their lungs instead of the recycled atmosphere they were used to. There was a moment's agonized surprise before people burst into flames. Some ran around for a little while but they were all dead in seconds. The monitors and equipment cracked in the heat and alarms wailed as sprinklers came to belated life. Much too late.

*

In another corridor the mute Sunil tried to lead the harem members to safety. Some of the boys and girls were frightened. Most were dead-eyed with drugs. They were the lucky ones.

A Mechanoid awaited them at the end of the corridor.

Sunil raised his huge scimitar over his head and charged at the machine with a roaring battle-cry, the only sound the harem had ever heard him make. His scimitar clanged off metal uselessly. The Mechanoid flipped out it's curved central grab, swatting the giant against a wall. The thermal lance doused him and Sunil blistered and stuck to the wall like a pinned insect.

Some of the harem, those who were cognisant, turned to escape but found another Mechanoid blocking the way. They were trapped.

Methodically, unhurriedly, the Mechanoids killed them, one after the other.

All except one...

*

And so it went on. The FERN complex became a charnal house, smelling of burnt meat.

*

"Can you smell something burning?" asked Kim, wrinkling her nose.

The Doctor frowned.

There was a beep as the electronic lock of their holding cell retracted. They both stood as a Mechanoid filled the door space.

The Mechanoid spoke, its words clipped and warbling. "Mechanoid Protocol Stovold 1. Code KAH. Kill All Humans."

Its thermal lance extended, covering the Doctor and Kim who shrank back against the far wall.

"Oh God!" breathed Kim.

"Stovold's legacy," murmured the Doctor.

The thermal lance whined with power. "Carbonize!"

The Doctor threw himself across Kim.

(End of Chapter 32)


	33. The Time Vault

Warp War: Chapter 33: _The Time Vault_

Kim waited for the flames that would meld their bodies into one. At some level she thought there were worse ways to go. On every other level she screamed...

But nothing came. The Mechanoid whirred and clicked and spoke in its funny, trilling voice. But it did not open fire.

"Zero...Stop. Non sequitur. KAH protocol complete. AHK. All Humans Killed." Its weapon retracted, as did its sensor array. It was suddenly motionless.

The Doctor rose to his feet and carefully went over to it. He scanned it quickly with his sonic probe then gave it a push. The Mechanoid travelled a few feet across the room without resistance or response.

"It's deactivated," he said, helping Kim get up.

"OK. I'll bite. Why are we still alive ?"

The Doctor laughed. "Oh, precious," he chortled. "What a clanger, Sir Anton."

Kim waited patiently, but she wasn't going to ask again.

"He programmed them to kill all humans. I suspect that is what they have done. They have fulfilled their program and deactivated."

Kim shook her head. "Excuse me?" She pointed at the Doctor, then herself.

"Figure it out, Kim."

She snapped her fingers. "Humans!"

"Exactly! The Mechanoid sensors detected that I do not fall into that category. As for you, Kim. Well, you are of my blood. Time Lord blood. Same result. It's the only explanation."

So there were some positives about being the Doctor's daughter after all !

The Doctor poked his head out of the open double doors of their holding room. He wrinkled up his nose against the smell of burnt meat and turned back to Kim.

"This isn't going to be pleasant, Kim, but we've got to get over to the Savant's cell."

"Why?"

"In the absence of any response to our summons there is only one thing I can think of. I'll have to hook myself up to the mainframe like he was. Fight his calculus with mine. I may just be able to slow the capsule down."

*

The Doctor was right. It wasn't pleasant.

They passed through areas containing mounds of burnt flesh, melted into unrecognisable shapes. There were Mechanoids too, but they were all dormant, following their programming to the letter.

"We've only got about 30 minutes until the capsule reaches target speed," said the Doctor as they hurried into a junction of corridors. It was an observation area by the look of it. Tall and wide with several corridors branching off it. The domed roof was plexi-glass, giving a panoramic view of the overhead star-systems. Mesh benches were dotted around the walls at regular intervals.

The Doctor went to exit the area but stopped, almost sniffing the air. "Do you feel a breeze, Kim?"

"Eh?"

They stopped. The Doctor's head quested this way and that. Kim felt the merest flutter on her cheek. "Yes, I felt it then. Is there a window open or something?"

"It's the Reapers, Kim ! They're coming. Here !" He looked as though he was thinking furiously. His face suddenly cleared and he placed his hands on Kim's shoulders. "I need you to stay here, Kim." He hushed her immediate protests. "There's no guarantee that the Reapers will get here in time. I have to try and slow the capsule down. You will be my eyes and ears. It's the only way."

Kim sighed. "How am I going to talk to you?"

"Good question. The Time Lords have latent telepathic links. I can't communicate with you at the moment but I may be able to boost it once I'm in the mainframe. I've got to go."

"You're leaving me again..."

But he had gone, running down the right-hand passage at full pelt.

Kim flopped into the nearest chair. She looked at the unfamiliar star-spangled sky through the transparent dome overhead. The stump of her left wrist throbbed. She felt weary and, despite herself, her eyelids drooped.

*

The Doctor arrived at the Savant's cell, his face flushed. Outside were two lumps of burnt flesh that had once been guards. Further along the corridor was an inert Mechanoid, its job done.

The outer doors swished open in response to the Doctor's sonic probe. The room was empty, powered-down. The Doctor dashed across to a free-standing console and turned a combination of circular dials.

"Come on, come on!" This through gritted teeth."Give me some power..."

In desperation he banged the console with his fist. Overhead panels flickered on and the room flooded with light.

With a cry of satisfaction the Doctor bounded across to the Savant's cruciform. It was glowing a luminous yellow and pulsating with energy. The Doctor flashed his sonic probe again and the transparent double doors encasing the cruciform slid open.

The Doctor threw off his coat and clamped the metallic skull-cap over his hair. He assumed the Savant's position.

"Here goes."

He grabbed the nodules at the end of the cruciform arm. Immediately his face went rigid and his eyes flickered, unblinking though they were.

On the viewing screen a slew of mathematical symbols paraded.

Sweat began to trickle down the Doctor's straining face.

*

In the Accelerator, deep underground, the capsule approached light speed. The gigantic magnets glowed white hot as they kicked the capsule around the array.

Inside the capsule Stovold and the Savant were almost face to face. The Savant muttering his ever-present calculus and Stovold dreaming of immortality. It was serene. There was absolutely no sense of speed.

Then, incredibly, the Savant fell silent.

Stovold's eyes snapped open in surprise.

"What the -?"

Then the Savant spoke. "Two plus two equals five..."

"WHAAATTTT!!..."

The capsule touched Light Speed and a branch in the Accelerator array flipped open automatically, sending the capsule hurtling up the massive barrel aimed at Procyon A. It was a blur.

Then, amazingly, as it reached the tip of the barrel, the capsule _stopped_.

*

"_Kim. Kim! Can you hear me ?_"

Kim's eye's snapped open guiltily and she looked around for the Doctor. "Where the hell are you?"

"_I'm still in the Savant's cell. Hooked up to the mainframe. I've managed to use some block-calculus to boost our telepathic link._"

"You're in my head?"

"_Only for as long as necessary. Now listen, Kim. I've managed to create a stasis field. The capsule is stuck in the barrel of the accelerator. But I can't hold it for long. Although the Savant is weak I've got five years of his mathematics to overcome. Now, tell me what's happening there. Just think it to me_."

There was a definite whirling breeze now, in the centre of the observation hub, under the dome.

"There's something happening," she thought. "The wind is whipping around now...hold on."

Suddenly there was a distant moaning sound and a swirl of mist. Something appeared, accompanied by a layered rendition of the Tardis' engines.

It stood there in silence. Massive and implacable.

A tall box of dull metal, about twice the size of the Doctor's ship. She was reminded of a giant bank safe, but she could see no lock. There appeared to be a massive slab of a door clamped shut on the facet facing Kim. Across its featureless surface a static charge flickered briefly, then extinguished. The moaning wind had stilled.

Kim waited breathlessly for something to happen.

Nothing did.

"_Kim, are you there? What's happening?"_

She told him.

"_That's OK. It's a Time-Vault. All we need to do is get the door open."_

"I can't see a lock..."

"_There'll be some kind of security device. It's a fail-safe to make sure that only a Time Lord can gain access. It will recognise you."_

Kim took a few steps forward and spotted it. At about waist height on the door. An impressed hand print. She flashed a thought to the Doctor, describing it.

"_That's it Kim. Hurry, I can't hold the capsule much longer..."_

Hearing the strain in the Doctor's thoughts, Kim hurried over to the Vault, feeling dwarfed by its massive solidity. She plunged her hand into the imprint. It was a good fit. The imprint began to flash blue under her hand. But apart from that nothing happened. The door remained shut.

Then she spotted it.

She didn't know how she missed it in the first place. Perhaps she _had _seen it and just blanked it out. A second imprint. A left-hand.

"Doctor, the door hasn't opened. There are _two_ imprints."

"_That's OK. It just needs you to put in both hands simultaneously -_"

His thoughts snapped off suddenly. There was an agonized silence.

He had realised, just as she had.

Kim was in the right place at the right time.

But she was a hand short !

(End of Chapter 33)


	34. The Second Hand

Warp War Chapter 34: _The Second Hand_

Kim beat helplessly at the massive door of the Time Vault with as much success as a fly trying to escape through a thick glass window. The winking imprint of the sunken right- hand seemed to mock her efforts.

Eventually she stepped back from the Time Vault, defeat gnawing at her insides.

"Doctor! Doctor! Can't you get over here and open it?" she projected.

"_I'm sorry, Kim. I've looked at it from every angle. If I leave the mainframe the stasis-field will begin to decay. It would only hold the capsule for ten minutes at most. I couldn't get to you in time."_ The voice in her head sounded strained, helpless.

"Think of something!"

"_I'm trying, Kim. I'm trying..._" It faded away.

Kim fell back on one of the mesh seats and cursed the fates, which had put her in the right place at the right time but without the tools to complete the job. Their one chance....

"Oh my God! I thought everyone was dead!"

Kim jumped at the impossible voice. A girl's face was poking out from one of the corridors, looking at Kim with a mixture of surprise, fear and hope.

She stepped forward. She was maybe 18 years old, dressed, not to put too fine a point on it, as a Piccadilly tart. Boob tube, tight leather skirt, high heels, the lot. Her face betrayed signs of an ordeal. Her mascara was running and her lipstick was smudged. But it was fear, more than anything that Kim saw on that face.

"It's OK, "said Kim, gently. "I won't hurt you."

The girl fell onto Kim's shoulder, sobbing. Kim patted her head abstractly. How had she survived the Mechanoid's cull? Kim caught a whiff of incense. That, together with the clothes gave her a clue to the girl's role in this infernal place.

"You're from Stovold's harem, aren't you?"

The girl stepped back, nodding."It was horrible. Those robot-things went mad. Killed them all. All except me. Set them on fire...It's the same everywhere..." She was high-pitched with hysteria.

"Except us. We're OK. The robots are all deactivated now. I'm Kim. Kim Gideon. What's your name?"

"I'm Anni Zmit."

"How did you survive, Anni?"

"I don't know. They killed them one by one. When it was my turn they just seemed to ...I don't know...ignore me...turned around and rolled away. Is everybody else dead? There's someone I'm looking for. My brother, Jon..."

"Your brother? Well, we survived, maybe he has..." Kim didn't want to get Anni's hopes up. She seemed as fragile as a porcelain doll. "Where does he work?"

"I don't know. I haven't seen him in years. He has a nickname, though. They call him 'The Savant'. "

Kim was only half-listening, her mind working on the problem of the sealed Time Vault. But the words eventually filtered through...

"WHAAATTT ! Your brother is the Savant ?! "

Anni cringed away at Kim's explosive response. "Yeah. Do you know if he's OK?"

"I-I couldn't say..." She gazed at Anni with unblinking eyes. Here was fate again, playing its unfathomable games.

Anni looked uncomfortable. "What are you staring at?"

"We're related," said Kim. "I'm a sort of distant ancestor. We're the same flesh and blood, Anni."

The girl frowned."There was just Jon and me. We have no relatives. We came here together. We were begging on the streets of Brasilia when Sir Anton found us. Jon won a maths competition but wouldn't come without me. Sir Anton agreed and I ended up..." she looked down at her clothes.

"He's a monster. " said Kim. "Anni, bear with me a moment..."

Kim focused her mind.

"Doctor!"

Nothing.

"DOCTOR! IT'S IMPORTANT!"

"_Kim. It had better be. The Stasis Field is slipping..._"

"Doctor, there's someone with me. Her name is Anni Zmit. She's the Savant's sister!"

"_WHAATTT!_"

"That was my reaction! The Savant's sister. Stovold had her working in his harem. She survived the Mechanoids like we did."

"_Zmit._" mused the voice in her head. "_It's a derivation of 'Smith'. And she survived the cull because she has Time Lord blood in her veins. Our blood. And you know what this means, Kim?_" She could hear the Doctor's becoming agitated in her head.

"What?"

"_Her hand, Kim. Her hand..._"

Oh My God!

Kim spun on Anni who had been waiting patiently. She grabbed her hand. "Anni. Come with me. There's something I need you to do."

Anni shrank back at the monolithic hulk of the Time Vault. "What is it?"

"It's a sort of safe," said Kim. "Anni, if we're to get out of this in one piece we have to open it." Kim held up her shortened left arm. "We need two hands. Two special hands. That's why you're here. It's fate. We have to put our hands in together at the same time." She indicated the imprints on the door.

Anni looked doubtful. "Will it hurt?"

"No. I promise."

"What's in there?"

"I don't know, " admitted Kim. "but I have a friend who thinks it will help. He is also a relative of ours, Anni. Ready?"

The girl nodded.

"Go."

Together they pressed their hands into the imprints; Kim right and Anni left. Both imprints glowed steadily blue. From a great distance came the sound of massive retracting bolts.

Kim and Anni stood back as the great door inched open. A low humming noise filled the observation hub, like wind passing through telegraph wires at night.

"Doctor!"

"_Kim?_"

"It's opening..."

"_Right. You need to get back to the Tardis. I'll meet you there. Can you remember the way_?"

"No"

"_I'll upload the route to you_."

"Oh, right. There it is..."

"_And Kim..._"

"Yes?"

"_RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!_"

Kim grabbed Anni by the arm, screaming at her to run. She dragged her off down the left- hand passage as the door of the Time Vault shuddered open.

For a long moment nothing happened save for an increasing volume in the Vault's electronic hum.

Then, without warning, it spewed a black cascade of projectile vomit, made up of thousands, millions of cells. They were individually, about the size of a splayed hand. Some were circular, some were delta-shaped, others were squirming worms or flapping bats or morphing globules...

The Reapers in their myriad horde. Bacteria.

The flow from the Time Vault was incessant, like an infinite mudslide. The Reapers spread in all directions at astonishing speed, coating the walls of the observation hub in oily blackness. They began to spread, cascading through the adjacent corridors, filling them. And still the vault belched them out. Millions of them. Billions of them.

*

"Where are we going?" gasped Anni, as they fell into an open elevator.

Kim stabbed a finger for level 2. "Safety." she said, as the doors shuddered shut and they descended.

The doors opened at the access tunnel where the Tardis had landed.

They both shrank back as they saw the circular shape of a Mechanoid standing off to one side. But it was as inert as all the others they had passed in the FERN complex above.

"Doctor!"

There was no answer to Kim's projected thoughts.

"What do we do now?" asked Anni.

"We wait. I think he's on his way."

"Who?"

Kim suddenly felt very tired again. "My Dad."

*

According to her watch it was five minutes later when the elevator doors opened again and the Doctor staggered breathlessly into the tunnel. He hugged Kim briefly and flashed a smile at a bemused Anni Zmit.

"We're cutting it fine, " he said hurriedly. "The stasis field has virtually collapsed. We can only hope that the Reapers get to the capsule before it fails completely. Still, we've done all we can. Let's get out of here." He made towards the Tardis, still standing in the shadow of the Accelerator pipe.

Anni hung back. "What, In that?"

Kim smiled. "You won't believe what's inside there."

Anni shrugged , took a step or two forward, then stopped, frowning.

"What's the matter?" asked Kim.

"I don't know. It's like I'm walking through mud." She took another wobbly step forward.

The Doctor turned back hurriedly. "We can't hang around. The Reapers will be here any minute. They're going to do a full sterilisation -" He broke off as he saw Anni's face.

"She's having trouble moving," said Kim, trying to pull the girl towards the police box.

Anni took another trembling step forward.

"Stop, Kim! Look at her leg!" said the Doctor.

In the half-light of the tunnel Kim could see that Anni's foremost leg was fluttering and fading. It phased into and out of transparency.

She stepped back away from the Tardis and her leg solidified again.

"She's not able to come with us," breathed the Doctor.

"I'm frightened." Anni turned big eyes on Kim, who turned angrily on the Doctor.

"What do you mean? She's bloody well saved us!"

"The Doctor shook his head. "I'm sorry, Kim. Time is regulating us now."

Kim swore.

The Doctor stepped forward. He placed his hands around Anni's face. "Blood of my blood." He placed a kiss on the girl's forehead.

"Will it hurt?" she whispered. "When I die?"

The Doctor smiled. "Anni, I promise you this. Whatever else happens, you are not going to die."

She smiled up weakly at him.

There was at tremendous thundering roar coming from the elevator shaft at the far end of the tunnel. The Doctor turned, grabbed Kim with surprising force, and dragged her over to the Tardis. He had just opened the doors when the Reapers burst into the tunnel, smashing the elevator door aside like so much matchwood. Kim watched in horror as the gigantic flood flowed forward like a giant serpent.

Anni Zmit never turned to face it. She stood impassively, looking at Kim and the Doctor in the Tardis doorway. It almost seemed that there was the ghost of a smile at her lips.

Kim screamed as Anni was enveloped. For a fleeting moment she could still make out the girl's silhouette. She looked as though someone had smothered her in tar. Then she was swallowed up.

The Doctor's hand pulled Kim inside his ship and the police-box doors slammed shut.

The Reapers flooded towards the Tardis but by the time they reached it, it had gone.

*

And still the Vault gushed. Uncountable trillions now, the Reaper cells sought out every nook and cranny of the FERN complex and its underground Accelerator. The stationary capsule containing Stovold and a young man named Jon Zmit was suddenly enveloped in blackness that came flooding up the Accelerator barrel like an erupting volcano. It imploded like a crushed grape.

And so it went on...and on...

The Reapers filled up all the available space, like a monsoon washing into a storm drain.

Eventually there came a time when there was no space left to fill. The Time Vault closed.

Everywhere was filled with black.

Then the Reapers started to grow...

*

Unconsciously they held hands, Kim and the Doctor, as the Tardis hovered over the FERN complex.

They watched on the scanner screen as the black stain of the Reapers spread like ink on a blotter. It grew until it was a massive impenetrable scab, covering the whole site.

Then there was a shimmer and it was gone. All of it. The Reapers and the FERN complex.

Kim blinked.

The plain on which the complex had stood was just so much bare rock. Kim wouldn't have been surprised had tumbleweed blown across it.

"Now what?" she asked.

The Doctor turned to her. His normally rather languid face was flushed.

"If we're lucky, something miraculous."

(End of Chapter 34)


	35. Time's Caress & Epilogue

Warp War: Chapter 35 : _Time's Caress _

As the FERN complex vanished a shockwave rippled out across the universe; many universes. It travelled at an immeasurable nul-speed, touching everything.

You might imagine that such an event would be cataclysmic in nature, accompanied by an explosion of stars, flashing lights and a fanfare of grinding of cosmic gears as the jigsaw of time fell back into place.

But you would be wrong. This was a whisper. As tenuous and subtle as breeze in a field of long grass. And where it found fronds that had bent or twisted, it straightened them with the merest caress...

.

_BREAKING NEWS – World Government sources have confirmed that an expedition to the FERN complex, orbiting Procyon A , arrived ten days ago. In a mystery to rival the 'Marie Celeste' of ancient times, the expedition found no evidence that the FERN complex had ever been there! A government spokesman stated that contact had been lost with the FERN complex two years ago and deep-space Rangerscopes had been unable to locate it. Despite frantic searches throughout the Empire, nothing has been found of Sir Anton Stovold or any FERN personnel._

_(REUTERS 2 November 3237) _

_._

_On her return from Peladon with the Doctor, Jo Grant cashed in seven days accumulated leave. She booked into a London hotel and spent the time shopping, seeing the sights, taking in a West End show or two and then more shopping. Towards the end of the week, with snow on the ground and in the air, she visited her uncle in Whitehall. She had never really thanked him for getting her the UNIT job in the first place. They had an early tea together._

_On the way back to her hotel Jo got off at the wrong Underground station and found herself lost. She turned into a dimly lit road and was just in time to dive in front of a skidding car and pull a three year old girl from virtually under its wheels. The car screeched off through the snow and Jo was nearly crushed by the hug of the little girl's grateful mother, Muriel Gideon._

_Despite her protestations Jo was frog-marched into Muriel's kitchen for a coffee and an outpouring of Muriel's effusive thanks. It took nearly half-an-hour for Jo to gently extract herself. She guessed that Muriel didn't get the opportunity to entertain too often. Little Kim was all she had._

_Jo left, promising faithfully that they would keep in touch. As is the way of many such promises she never saw Muriel Gideon again._

_._

_The Sword of Damocles hanging over all living things fell on Muriel Gideon a few days short of her forty-sixth birthday. A brain hemorrhage. Quick and decisive. Her twenty-six year old daughter found her folded neatly at the bottom of the stairs. She cried for her._

_There was no one else to do the crying. Kim's father had never put in an appearance since he had found out about Muriel's pregnancy. There was only Kim. To see her awkward and graceless daughter promoted to Assistant Librarian had been some kind of triumph for Muriel . She never, though, saw her daughter reach for the stars. She would have been amazed._

_Muriel Gideon never did find her Mr. Right. But she never knew how close she came..._

_._

_Several Universes away, in a place we designate 'E-Space' , a woman looked out from the balcony of her palace, out across the Lake of Five Moons. Behind her, music played in the glittering ballroom and laughter wafted on the breeze._

_As the society papers would confirm the following day, she looked particularly stunning tonight. The Belle of the Ball. Tall, elegant in her form-fitting black dress and with her skin parchment white, almost blue. At her throat was a perfect tear-drop pendant. She gazed out from her kidney-shaped face and wondered about her dreams. _

_She was dreaming the same thing each night. Of Monsters, and Tragedy and War. Churning over and over. But there was a man...not of her race... but a beautiful chiseled man in a long blue coat who came to save her. Again and again. _

_The Lady Battonica de Regis sighed and looked at the stars. She decided firmly that if these dreams continued she would have to consult a doctor..._

_._

_In the vicinity of the Descrii system the Tardis passed peacefully en route to its next destination. There was no collision with a Hunter-class Cryo ship. No Time Ram. Because such things as Hunter-class Cryo ships had never been built. Never would be._

_._

"It hasn't worked, has it ?" Kim said, with some bitterness.

The Doctor looked up from his controls and raised an eyebrow. "Oh yes? What makes you say that?"

"I can remember it ! All of it ! If everything had changed back then I shouldn't be able to remember it at all, should I?"

The Doctor smiled. "Brilliant, Kim. You are truly brilliant. Wrong of course..."

"How am I wrong ?" She thrust out her chin, angry at his condescension.

"Well, you have failed to take account of where you are." He waved his arms about. "You are here. In the Tardis with me. At the eye of the hurricane. Of course you remember. It doesn't mean that it hasn't worked. Anyway, there are one or two signs...promising signs."

"Like what?"

The Doctor pointed over to the scanner which was showing a clear starscape.

"That, for one. I've moved us forward again to the fifty-second century. To the exact position of the Nebula of The Lion Rampant. It was the ejecta from the process that formed the Screamers. Leaking out through the CVE . It's not there. Never has been."

"OK." Kim wasn't convinced. "What else?"

The Doctor gave her a funny look. He raised his hand and jiggled his fingers at her. He had a lopsided grin on his face. He looked like an idiot.

Kim sighed. "Doctor, I'm not in the mood for charades..."

He did it again. Jiggle jiggle.

Oh for God's sake!

Kim raised her hand and jiggled back.

Her _left _hand...

Kim screamed, dancing around the room and clapping her hands together, like a hyper-active toddler. She high-fived the Doctor, over and over. She held her hands triumphantly together over her head, and clapped them again, just because she could.

And when her hysteria faded she threw herself forward, holding the Doctor tightly, frightened to let go. She sobbed, uncontrollably, as the Doctor patted her back.

"It's OK, Kim. Things are just as they should be."

She stepped back, wiping away her tears and looking with wonder at her left hand.

"You said it would be miraculous. I need to know how you keep doing these things."

"Cause and effect, pure and simple." The Doctor ticked off the points on his fingers. "The capsule was never fired into the star, right? The CVE was therefore never formed. The Screamers were never created. There was no war. If there was no war then there was no ship for the Tardis to collide with and no tunnel back to 1968 for the Taranium to mutate time... and so on."

Kim frowned." But it's a bit like the chicken and the egg. I can't get my head round it."

"Don't try. Someone invented a technical term for it, a long time ago."

"What term?"

"Timey-wimey."

"Oh, very technical," smiled Kim. She hesitated, "Doctor. You promised Anni that she wouldn't die..."

"You know I keep my promises, Kim. Especially to a relative. Anni was never born. She never knew the life of degradation that Stovold forced her to lead. Nor her brother. No pain for either of them."

"Then you're not my father any more?"

The Doctor shook his head. "I never was, Kim. Only in that mutated timeline." He suddenly looked sad. "I've lost a life I never knew I had. A wife, descendants...a daughter."

"I'm sorry..."

He became brisk. "The greater good, Kim. The greater good." He turned, as if struck by a sudden thought. "Although..."

"What?"

"Well, if you wanted to meet your father..." He indicated the Tardis controls.

"No way," she said firmly. "Let's let sleeping dogs lie."

"I was hoping that would be your answer. Still, I do have somewhere in mind. Just to double check." He turned to his controls.

"Doctor."

"Mmm?"

"Wherever it is, please can it be somewhere hot?"

.

_All wars need a name. Sometimes, very occasionally, they lose it. A case in point was the Warp War. It lost its name. It never happened._

_._

Warp War: _Epilogue_

_Fraser Bay, New South Wales, Australia_

_5115 AD_

The beach was delightful. Sandy, hot and kissed by waves of purest blue, frothing into virgin white.

Kim had hitched up her skirt and was paddling in the foaming water, occasionally doused by a large breaker. She didn't care.

Likewise, the Doctor had left his coat rolled up on the beach along with his boots and was splashing about like a big kid with his trousers rolled up. His morphing T shirt sported a huge smiley-face motif, as if to match their collective mood.

After a while they returned to the Doctor's coat and flopped in the sand, lapping up the rays. Kim looked around. The beach was sparsely populated, mostly of humanoid stock although with many variations.

A pair of blue-skinned toddlers ran past, laughing and proceeded to build a pair of sand-castles at the waterline. Kim felt a warm glow of satisfaction that even in the fifty-second century, children could still be entertained with a bucket and spade at the seaside.

She looked out to sea, watching distant surfers catching the waves and felt all her recent trials and tribulations draining away, like water into sand. In the sky various high altitude contrails formed a lattice basket overhead.

"I love this," she said simply.

The Doctor smiled. "The final proof, I think. Five years ago the Screamers' first missile destroyed Australia."

"Only it didn't, did it."

"No no, of course not -" The Doctor broke off, frowning. He stared off to his left.

Kim followed his gaze. In the middle-distance a dot was walking along the beach, shimmering in the heat. After a while it resolved itself into the silhouette of a man and grew bigger and more distinct as he came towards them.

"Don't tell me; Lawrence of Arabia!" said Kim.

The Doctor didn't laugh but he slowly rose to his feet, his eyes fixed on the approaching stranger. Kim stood at his side, feeling suddenly anxious.

Eventually the stranger reached them and stood a few paces away from the Doctor. They regarded each other evenly.

Kim, however, regarded the stranger anything but evenly. Her personal Phwooarr-ometer was flickering wildly all over the place. The stranger was clean-cut, handsome and tall. The only incongruity was his attire. A long blue coat that seemed more appropriate to the Battle of Britain and the R.A.F than a sweltering beach in fifty-second century New South Wales. Yet he didn't seem to be sweating. He looked icy.

"Doctor," said the newcomer, at length.

"Jack," said the Doctor, warily.

"You couldn't leave well enough alone, could you." said the stranger, somewhat bitterly. "There I was, happily dead. Then you come along and bingo! Here I am again."

"Sorry," said the Doctor. "Nothing I could do."

"You could have done nothing."

The Doctor shook his head. "The greater good, Jack. We've both lost something, but we're just specks in the scheme of things. Grains of sand."

Jack sighed and his tension seemed to dissipate. "They had me. The Screamers. They killed me. Something to do with E-Space matter. You changed it back but I can still remember..."

"You're unique, Jack. A singularity. That's why you remember."

Jack passed a hand across his forehead. "There's something else. I feel...different..."

The Doctor reached inside his rolled-up coat and pulled out his sonic probe. "May I?"

"Go ahead."

The Doctor scanned Jack in blue light and glanced at the probe.

"I can't be entirely sure. You really need a specialised diagnosis, but it looks as though there is some kind of mutation. At the DNA level. Very slow-acting."

"Mutation? I'm changing?"

"Not for thousands, maybe millions of years. Some kind of residual effect from your contact with the Screamers perhaps..."

"But that didn't happen!" objected Jack.

The Doctor shrugged. "As I said, you're a singularity, Jack. The normal rules don't apply."

"Millions of years, eh?" Jack stroked his chin. "Ah well. Even I might be ready for a change by then."

"What are you going to do next?"

Jack thumbed the contrails overhead. "Get out there again. There's a spaceport about forty klicks away. I'll jump a ship out. The old life."

"The Tardis is over there in the dunes," said the Doctor, carefully. "There's always a berth available. If you want it."

Jack sighed. "Thanks, Doctor, I've been there, done that. Anyway, you're too...dangerous."

He stood back and, to Kim's surprise, snapped off a regulation military salute. The Doctor replied with a casual forefinger to the brow.

Jack turned to go, but paused for a moment to address his only words to Kim. "Keep an eye on him for me."

She nodded dumbly.

They watched him go the way he came, diminishing to a dot.

"What was that about mutation? Is he going to turn into a frog or something?" said Kim.

"Maybe just a big old face," murmured the Doctor.

"Will you ever see him again?"

"Already have."

"OW!" This gasp of pain made them both turn. It was followed, to Kim's delight, by a stream of familiar oaths and profanities.

The author of this invective was limping up the beach carrying a surf-board under his right arm. He was tall, fair and muscular. His skin almost glowed golden and he wore a strip of lycra that left very little to the imagination.

Kim's phwoaarr-ometer had it's second run out of the day and virtually blew its top. She hurried gratefully forward to support the limping surfer.

"Thanks," he said, as Kim snuggled under his left shoulder. He had a distinct Aussie twang and, of course, perfect teeth.

They approached the Doctor who looked down at the surfer's left foot, which he held clear of the sand. Kim could see that it was red and inflamed.

"Jellyfish sting?" asked the Doctor, reaching into another of his coat pockets.

The surfer nodded. "A beaut!"

The Doctor pulled out a small transparent plastic square, bit off a corner and spread a bluish gel on the wound. "Give it a couple of minutes."

As Kim watched, the red inflammation mottled and faded. After five minutes it had gone and the surfer was tentatively dabbing his foot on the sand. His face broke into a delighted grin and Kim went a little weak at the knees again.

"Jeez! That's miraculous. You a doctor or something?"

"Sort of. And this is my friend Kim"

The surfer nodded and looked back out to sea. "There's a biggie coming in. I want to catch it if I can."

They went down to the water's edge where the surfer paddled out a few steps, surfboard under arm.

"Thanks for your help, Doc. 'Bye Kim." He turned to go but paused. "My name's Mik Dekka, by the way."

Kim wasn't the least bit surprised.

THE END


End file.
